No abstract

In order to assess mechanisms underlying inflammatory activation during extracorporeal circulation (ECC), several small animal models of ECC have been proposed recently. The majority of them are based on home-made, nonstandardized, and hardly reproducible oxygenators. The present study has generated fundamental information on the role of oxygenator of ECC in activating inflammatory signaling pathways on leukocytes, leading to systemic inflammatory response, and organ dysfunction. The present results suggest that experimental animal models of ECC used in translational research on inflammatory response should be based on standardized, reproducible oxygenators with clinical characteristics.

Levosimendan has better inotropic and lusitropic effects than epinephrine during rewarming from deep hypothermic circulatory arrest with cardiopulmonary bypass.

Short-term PP in elderly patients showed higher safety for renal physiology than NP, resulting in better maintenance of glomerular filtration and lower renal tissue injury.

The aim of this work is to analyze endothelium nitric oxide (NO) release in patients undergoing continuous or pulsatile flow cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). Nine patients operated under continuous flow CPB, and nine patients on pulsatile flow CPB were enrolled. Plasma samples were withdrawn for the chemiluminescence detection of nitrite and nitrate. Moreover the cellular component was withdrawn for the detection of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity in the erythrocytes, and an estimation of systemic inflammatory response was carried out. Significant reduction in the intraoperative concentration with respect to the preoperative was observed only under continuous flow CPB for both nitrite and NO(x) (nitrite + nitrate) concentration (P = 0.010 and P = 0.016, respectively). Significant difference in intraoperative nitrite concentration was also observed between the groups (P = 0.012). Finally, erythrocytes showed a certain endothelial NOS activity, which did not differ between the groups, and no differences in the inflammatory response were pointed out. The significant reduction of NO(2)(-) concentration under continuous perfusion revealed the strong connection among perfusion modality, endothelial NO release, and plasmatic nitrite concentration. The similar erythrocyte eNOS activity between the groups revealed that the differences in blood NO metabolites are mainly ascribable to the endothelium release.