Substances used for local and general anaesthesia in major surgery suppress proliferative responsiveness of normal rat peripheral blood mononuclear cells in culture:

Immunomodulators in anesthesia

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Anesthetics are known to have immunomodulatory effects. These can be detrimental, inducing immunosuppression and facilitating the development of opportunistic infections, especially when used at high doses, for prolonged periods, or in patients with preexisting immune deficiency; or beneficial, modulating the inflammatory response, particularly in critical illness and systemic hyperinflammatory states.

RECENT FINDINGS

Anesthetics can have microbicidal properties, and both anti- and pro-inflammatory effects. They can act directly on immune cells as well as modulate immunity through indirect pathways, acting on the neuroimmune stress response, and have recently been described to interact with the gut microbiota.

SUMMARY

Anesthesiologists should take into consideration the immunomodulatory properties of anesthetic agents in addition to their hemodynamic, neuroprotective, and other impacts. In future, patient stratification according to the perioperative assessment of serum biomarkers associated with postoperative complications may be used to guide anesthetic agent selection based on their immunomodulatory properties.

The reduction of tumor necrosis factor-alpha release and tissue damage by pentobarbital in the experimental endotoxemia model

Sepsis is the leading cause of death for intensive care patients. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) administration to animals under anesthesia is a strategy for the study of uncontrolled release of proinflammatory cytokines. Anesthetics have been indicated that they can specially affect immune responses, such as the inflammatory response. Pentobarbital is an anesthetic used mainly in animal studies. Thus, the effect of pentobarbital on tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) release was determined. The results revealed that pentobarbital suppressed the expression of TNF-alpha mRNA and its proteins, which may result from the decrease in the activities of nuclear factor-kappaB and activator protein 1 and the reduction of the expression of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase by pentobarbital. After the inhibitory activity of the pentobarbital for TNF-alpha release was proven in vivo, the cytotoxic effects of LPS were examined in vivo with or without pentobarbital treatments. In vivo results indicated that plasma levels of alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, lactic dehydrogenase, creatine kinase, serum urea nitrogen, and amylase decreased dramatically in the anesthetic group with pentobarbital administration. Finally, the effect of pentobarbital on TNF-alpha-related cell death was monitored in vitro, and the results indicated the pentobarbital could directly enhance the viabilities of cells under the treatment of TNF-alpha and protected cells from apoptosis induced by deferoxamine mesylate-induced hypoxia. These results suggest that pentobarbital significantly influences the LPS-induced inflammatory response and protects cells from death directly and indirectly induced by TNF-alpha. The information provides a perspective to re-evaluate the results of the experiments in which animals were anesthetized with pentobarbital. The anti-inflammatory effects of the drugs may have been caused by the synergistic effect of pentobarbital.

The effects of intravenous anesthetics and lidocaine on proliferation of cultured type II pneumocytes and lung fibroblasts

Type II pneumocytes synthesize surfactant and differentiate into type I pneumocytes to maintain the epithelium (1). Alveolar type II cell proliferation is required for reepithelization after acute lung injury (ALI) and is thought to minimize the subsequent fibrotic response (1). Keratinocyte growth factor (KGF) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) are among the most potent mitogen for type II epithelial cells, but not for fibroblasts in the lung (1). These growth factors attenuate several experimental ALI models by promoting epithelial repair (2,3). Thus, KGF and HGF may be a promising therapeutic approach to ALI. Critically ill patients with ALI often receive IV anesthetics or sedatives to facilitate mechanical ventilation. Furthermore, these patients sometimes undergo bronchoscopy under local anesthesia to obtain bronchoalveolar lavage fluid or to remove respiratory secretions. Several IV and local anesthetics inhibit proliferation of various cells including epithelium (4,5). If these anesthetics impede proliferation of type II pneumocytes, this suppressive effect may be a disadvantage for alveolar reepithelization in the course of recovery from ALI. In this study, we examined the effects of midazolam, propofol, ketamine, thiopental, and lidocaine on proliferation of type II alveolar epithelial cells using in vitro culture system. Because fibroblast proliferation is a key event in late phase of ALI, inhibition of this fibroproliferation is probably beneficial. Thus, we further determined whether these anesthetics could regulate proliferation of lung fibroblasts. In the current study, rolipram was used as a positive control. In our previous preliminary experiment, we found that rolipram, a phosphodiesterase inhibitor type IV, augments spontaneous or KGF-/HGF-promoted type II cell proliferation (6).

IMPLICATIONS

Midazolam, ketamine, thiopental, propofol, or lidocaine did not inhibit proliferation of cultured rat type II pneumocytes. Our findings suggest that these anesthetics do not impede alveolar reepithelization after acute lung injury.