The effects of atorvastatin on seconder lung injury in rat intraabdominal sepsis model

Objective: Sepsis induced lung injury causes high mortality despite of the development in diagnosis and treatment. Statins, a group of hypolipidemic drugs which are widely used, show promise for the future. The aim of this experimental study was to investigate the effects of atorvastatin, which is a drug in the group of statins, on sepsis induced lung injury.Materials and Methods: After obtaining approval from the Instutional Animal Experiments Ethics Committee, 21 adult male Wistar rats weighing between 200 and 250 grams were divided into three study groups randomly as sham (n=7), sepsis (n=7) and atorvastatin (AV; n=7). In sham group, only laparotomy was performed, whereas in both sepsis and AV groups cecal ligation and perforation (CLP) were done. Groups were treated 18 and 2 hours before CLP. Sham and sepsis groups were treated with 1 ml saline, AV group was treated with 10 mg/kg atorvastatin, using 2.5 mg/ml atorvastatin microemulsion via gavage. All rats were sacrificed after 24 hours from CLP, right lungs were removed for histopathological process. The tissues were assesed for alveolar macrophage quantity and alveolar injury.Results: Alveolar injury score of sepsis group was significantly higher than the sham group (p=0,001). Although it was not significant, the injury score of atorvastatin group was lower than the sepsis group (p=0,058). The macrophage numbers were found to be significantly higher in the sepsis group compared to the sham group (p=0,002) and significantly lower in the atorvastatin group compared to the sepsis group (p=0,002).Conclusions: In the present study, it was demonstrated that atorvastatin reduced sepsis induced lung injury histopathologically.Keywords: Sepsis, lung injury, statin, atorvastatin