Improved energy preservation following gentle reperfusion after hypothermic, ischemic cardioplegia in infarcted rat hearts

The influence of temperature and pressure during early reperfusion after 2 h of hypothermic, cardioplegic ischemia was investigated. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and creatine-phosphate (CP) were measured after 45-min reperfusion. The experiments were carried out in normal and previously infarcted rat hearts (the left coronary artery having been ligated 3 weeks earlier). Four groups, each containing six hearts, were studied. Group 1 consisted of normal hearts reperfused with an abrupt rise in temperature and pressure, group 2 of normal hearts exposed to slowly rising temperature and pressure, and group 3 and 4 of previously infarcted hearts. Reperfusion procedures in groups 3 and 4 were the same as in group 1 and 2, respectively. The study showed that previously infarcted hearts have a lowered tolerance to ischemia and that the reperfusion technique may influence the preservation of myocardial energetics, although this influence was not statistically significant in normal hearts following only 2 h of ischemia. The gently reperfused infarcted hearts had energy stores equal to the normal hearts after 2 h of ischemia and 45 min of reperfusion, whereas the infarcted hearts reperfused in a rougher mode had significantly lowered values (P less than 0.05 for ATP and P less than 0.01 for CP).