Temperature preconditioning: a cold-hearted answer to ischaemic-reperfusion injury?

摘要

Restoration of blood flow following a prolonged period of ischaemia results in irreversible tissue damage and myocardial dysfunction. Such ischaemic-reperfusion (I/R) injury occurs following myocardial infarction and is a risk in a number of surgical procedures, including coronary bypass and transplant surgery. Numerous studies have shown that ischaemic preconditioning (IP) is a powerful means of protecting the heart against this -type of injury. This involves subjecting the heart to brief periods of ischaemia interspersed by periods of normal perfusion prior to prolonged ischaemia, and it has been shown to-reduce myocardial cell death as well as having a number of other cardioprotective effects (Murry etal. 1986)