ORIGINAL ARTICLES  CARDIAC SECTION 

The Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery 2002 April;43(2):175-9

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Intravenous allicin improves pulmonary blood flow after ischemia-reperfusion injury in rats

Batirel H. F. ¹, Naka Y. ¹, Kayano K. ³, Okada K. ³, Vural K. ⁴**, Pinsky D. J. ³, Oz M. C. ²

From the 1 Department of Thoracic Surgery Marmara University Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey 2 Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery Department of Surgery 3 Division of Circulatory Physiology Department of Cardiology Columbia Presbytarian Medical Center New York, New York, New York, USA 4 Division of Cardiovascular Surgery Yüksek Ihtisas Hospital, Ankara, Turkey

Background. Allicin is a sul­fur-con­tain­ing com­pound extract­ed ­from gar­lic, ­with anti­ag­greg­a­to­ry, ­anti- migra­to­ry, ­anti-oxi­dant ­and pul­mo­nary vaso­di­la­tor ­actions. We hypoth­e­sized ­that alli­cin ­might be ben­e­fi­cial in ­lung ischemia-reperfusion.
Methods. A ­non-nother­mic ­rat ­lung ischemia-reperfusion mod­el ­was estab­lished by clamp­ing ­left pul­mo­nary ­artery (PA) ­for 1 hr, fol­lowed by reper­fu­sion ­for 2 ­hrs by clamp­ing ­right PA to ­reflect sole­ly ­the func­tion of ­left ­lung. Groups ­were con­trol (n=7), alli­cin 0.1 ­mg (n=8) ­and alli­cin 0.01 ­mg (n=4). In ­the begin­ning of reper­fu­sion allicin/­saline ­were inject­ed. Pulmonary ­artery pres­sures (­PAP), pul­mo­nary ­artery ­flow (­PAF), ­left atri­al pres­sure (­LAP) ­were mon­i­tored. At ­the ­end of reper­fu­sion peri­od arte­ri­al ­blood ­gas (ABG) anal­y­sis ­was ­done.
Results. Six of 7 con­trol ­and 3 of 8 ­group 2 ani­mals ­died ­before com­plet­ing ­the experi­ment. In ­group 1 ­all ani­mals com­plet­ed ­the experi­ment (p=0.015 vs con­trol). ­PAF ­was sig­nif­i­cant­ly ­increased ­after 30, 60 ­and 120 ­min of reper­fu­sion in ­group 1 (p=0.0028, 0.0009, 0.0003 respec­tive­ly vs con­trol) ­and ­after 60 ­and 120 min­utes in ­group 2 (p=0.0453, 0.018 respec­tive­ly vs con­trol). Pulmonary vas­cu­lar resis­tance ­was low­er at 30 ­min in allicin 0.01 ­mg ­group (p=0.0017 vs con­trol). ­PAP ­was ­increased ­after 60 ­and 120 ­min of reper­fu­sion in ­group 1 (p=0.016, 0.0029 respec­tive­ly vs con­trol) ­and ­after 120 ­min in ­group 2 (p=0.0104 vs con­trol).
Conclusions. This ­study ­shows ­that allicin ­improves ­postischem­ic ­PAF in ­this mod­el. Allicin ­needs fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion of poten­tial util­ity ­and mech­a­nism(s) of ­action.