Metabolic and functional effects of carbohydrate substrate with single-dose and multiple-dose potassium cardioplegia

Glucose level and myocardial recovery after warm arrest

BACKGROUND

During induced cold ischemia for cardiac operations, increasing glucose concentration is not thought to enhance myocardial protection and may detrimentally affect recovery. However, during "warm aerobic" arrest, increased glucose availability as substrate could enhance postischemic metabolic and functional recovery, as during and after ischemia, myocytes shift preference for substrate from fatty acids to glucose. Unfortunately, hyperglycemia may also increase patient susceptibility to neurologic injury.

METHODS

This experiment was designed to study the optimal dose of glucose and its effect on function during warm arrest. Isolated, retrograde-perfused rabbit hearts received multidose cardioplegia containing increasing concentrations of glucose, from 0 to 88 mmol/L, and underwent 120 minutes of "warm" 34 degrees C global ischemia. Osmolarities were adjusted equivalently.

RESULTS

After 34 degrees C ischemia, hearts treated with 5 to 88 mmol/L glucose showed significantly better functional recovery than those treated with 0 to 1 mmol/L glucose. However, the addition of 22 mmol/L glucose demonstrated optimal recovery with no further incremental enhancement with more glucose. Additional hearts receiving 0 or 22 mmol/L glucose had high-energy phosphates, lactate, CO2, and pH measured. The 22 mmol/L glucose hearts demonstrated active metabolism and significantly better recovery of high-energy phosphate levels than controls.

CONCLUSIONS

Increasing glucose level modestly during warm arrest enhanced recovery, but profound hyperglycemia did not incrementally improve this effect, mandating a cautious use of glucose.

Cardiac storage with UW solution and glucose

Previous investigations from our institution using an isolated human cardiomyocyte model concluded that glucose supplementation of University of Wisconsin solution (UWS) was beneficial with respect to adenine nucleotide and protein recovery. We wished to confirm these results using an isolated heart model. Rodent hearts were frozen in liquid nitrogen (control) or flushed and stored in UWS for 8 hours at 0 degrees C or UWS supplemented with 10, 20, or 30 mmol/L glucose. Experimental hearts were assessed at end-storage or after 45 minutes of reperfusion on a Langendorff apparatus. Adenine nucleotides were assessed by high performance liquid chromatography. In parallel experiments, ventricular function was assessed before and after storage in Langendorff-perfused hearts instrumented with a left ventricular balloon. Glucose supplementation was associated with greater poststorage (20 and 30 mmol/L glucose) and postreperfusion (10, 20, and 30 mmol/L glucose) adenosine triphosphate levels than unmodified UWS. Developed pressure (expressed as a percentage of control values) was increased with 10 mmol/L glucose (75.2% +/- 7.9%, mean +/- standard deviation) compared with unmodified UWS (64.6% +/- 6.6%; p < 0.05). Coronary flow was greater with 10 (72.6% +/- 10.7%) or 20 mmol/L (71.2% +/- 12.5%) versus 0 mmol/L glucose (58.6% +/- 12.1%, p < 0.05). The data support previous in vitro findings and suggest that the addition of 10 mmol/L glucose to UWS is associated with enhanced recovery after prolonged hypothermic storage.

Oxygenated cardioplegia: the metabolic and functional effects of glucose and insulin

Reports differ as to the efficacy of glucose and insulin as cardioplegic additives. Although deliberate oxygenation of crystalloid cardioplegic solutions improves myocardial protection, little is known about the protection afforded by glucose and insulin in such oxygenated solutions. In the isolated working rat heart, we studied the addition of oxygen, glucose, and insulin, separately and together, to a cardioplegic solution. The solution was equilibrated with O2 or N2, with glucose added as a substrate or sucrose as a nonmetabolizable osmotic control, with or without insulin. Hearts were arrested for 2 hours at 8 degrees C by multidose infusions. Oxygenation decreased lactate production and improved high-energy phosphate and glycogen preservation during arrest, prevented ischemic contracture, and improved functional recovery. The addition of glucose to the oxygenated solution increased the level of adenosine triphosphate at end-arrest from 10.5 +/- 0.5 to 13.9 +/- 0.6 nmol/mg dry weight and glycogen stores from 18.7 +/- 2.5 to 35.7 +/- 5.5 nmol/mg dry weight. The further addition of insulin did not better preserve these metabolites. Improvements in functional recovery due to glucose or insulin in the oxygenated solution attained statistical significance when both additives were included. Glucose increased lactate production significantly only when the solution was nitrogenated. Insulin added to the nitrogenated glucose-containing solution increased adenosine triphosphate and glycogen levels after 1 hour of arrest; and, although insulin did not prevent ischemic contracture from developing during the latter part of arrest with profound depletion of these metabolites, functional recovery was improved. The mechanism of improved functional recovery by insulin is not clear.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Preliminary evaluation of cocarboxylase on myocardial protection of the rat heart

The presence of cocarboxylase (CC) is essential for the oxidation of pyruvate to acetylcoenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) and its subsequent degradation by means of the Krebs cycle. We compared the effects of various concentrations of CC in a cardioplegic solution on the survival and hemodynamic and metabolic recovery of 23 isolated, working rat hearts subjected to 60 minutes of hypothermic (23 degrees C) ischemic arrest. Group 1 (N = 6) consisted of hearts infused with the basic cardioplegic solution (Tyers' solution with glucose), to which no CC was added. In group 2 (N = 6) CC was added at 0.1 ml/L to the cardioplegic solution. In group 3 (N = 5) CC was added at 1 ml/L, and in group 4 (N = 6) CC was added at 10 ml/L. The cardioplegic infusions were performed at a pressure of 40 mm Hg for 2 minutes just before arrest; 30 minutes later they were performed again for 1 minute. Only two hearts (33.3%) recovered in group 1 whereas five recovered in group 2, five (100%) in group 3, and five (83.3%) in group 4. The recovery of hemodynamic performance as a percentage of preischemic control values showed marked improvement in the CC groups, especially group 3, when compared with group 1. The metabolic variables in the CC groups were also markedly improved, with significantly (p less than .05) decreased levels of tissue lactate and increased levels of creatine phosphate compared with those in group 1.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Evaluation of myocardial preservation using 31P NMR

The purpose of this study was (1) to monitor myocardial high-energy phosphate content and recovery of left ventricular (LV) contractile function following normothermic graded cardiac ischemia and single-dose hypothermic potassium cardioplegia, and (2) to assess the temporal limits of LV functional recovery during single-dose cardioplegia maintained at 17 degrees C. Rabbit hearts (30) were perfused, equipped with an LV balloon, paced at 240 beats/min, and placed in a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) magnet. Hearts underwent either graded, global normothermic ischemia or potassium cardioplegia arrest maintained at 17 degrees C for 1 hr. Myocardial high-energy phosphate level, LV contractility, and temperature were monitored continuously. Phosphocreatine (PCr) fell to 10 +/- 2, 2 +/- 1, and 0% of control and ATP to 70 +/- 3, 19 +/- 7, and 0% of control at 10, 40, and 60 min of 37 degrees C ischemia. After 1 hr of reperfusion, regression analysis of final developed pressure (DP) on end ischemic ATP (EIATP) content revealed: DP = 1.02 EIATP + 18 (r = 0.95). Following single-dose cardioplegia, maintained at 17 degrees C, PCr fell to 16 +/- 3% of control at 60 min while ATP fell only to 92 +/- 5% control. With reperfusion, recovery of DP was 100%. It was concluded that (1) PCr serves as an energy buffer for ATP, (2) EIATP predicts recovery of LV function, (3) single-dose cardioplegia maintained at 17 degrees C provides complete myocardial preservation for up to 60 min.