Changes of oxidative and lipoperoxidative metabolism in patients with acute viral myocarditis

Objective: To study the changes of oxidative metabolism and lipoperoxidative metabolism in patients with acute viral myocarditis (AVM), and to research pathological chain reactions of a series of free radicals, and oxidative damage and lipoperoxidative damage in AVM patients' bodies. Methods: A random paired control design was used to investigate 70 cases of AVM patients and 70 cases of healthy adult volunteers (HAV) on the basis of contents of nitric oxide (NO), lipoperoxide (LPO) in plasma, and LPO in red blood cell (RBC) as well as activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) in RBC as revealed by spectrophotometric assays. Results: Compared with the average values (AV) of the above biochemical parameters (BP) in the HAV group, the AV of NO in plasma, and LPO in plasma and in RBC in the AVM group were significantly increased ( P =0.0001), while the AV of SOD, CAT and GSH-Px in the AVM group were significantly decreased ( P =0.0001). Conclusion: The findings in this study suggested that in the AVM patients bodies the metabolism of NO was disturbed, and the pathological chain reactions of a series of free radicals were so severely aggravated, as to cause the oxidative damage and lipoperoxidative damage in the AVM patients' bodies.