Effects of remote ischemic preconditioning on myocardial lipid peroxidation in unilateral lower limb rat ischemia reperfusion model

It has been known that tourniquet application is widely used in every day practice and is, however, an ischemia reperfusion (IR) model. In this study it is planned to investigate the effect of unilateral lower limb IR on lipid peroxidation, without constitution of any direct myocardial ischemia and prevention of this probable effect by remote ischemic preconditioning ( IP). Four groups of rats consisting of 7 subjects were included in the study. The Sham group ( n = 6) served as time controls, they remained anesthetized for the whole duration of study; the IR group ( n= 6) underwent 4 hour of left lower limb ischemia followed by 2 hour reperfusion; in the IP group ( n=7) the left lower limbs of rats were exposed to three cycles of 10 minutes of ischemia followed by 10 minutes of reperfusion; IP plus IR group ( n= 7) underwent ischemic preconditioning as in the IP group followed by 4 hours of ischemia and 2 hours of reperfusion . At the end of the study period rats were sacrified by exasanguination of total blood volume. Hearts were totally excised for later tissue MDA level determination and histopathological examination. MDA levels of Sham group compared with IR group was significantly lower, whereas there was no significant difference between Sham and IP and IP+IR groups. MDA levels in IR group was significantly higher than the ones in IP and IP+IR groups. The heart histological injury scores of all groups were determined as ?0?. Unilateral lower limb ischemic reperfusion causes lipid peroxidation on myocardium and this effect can be reduced by remote ischemic preconditioning. In this study we concluded that remote IP can be tried as an alternative method that can be adapted to clinical use and has a potential to reduce the perioperative cardiac problems, for high risky patients who were scheduled for extremity surgery in which tourniquet application would be used.