Do repeated desflurane treatments cause alzheimer disease in newborn rats?

Aim: The effects of anesthetic agents, used in pediatric anestesia on developing brain are studied oftenly now a days. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of repeated desflurane treatments on Alzheimer disease development in newborn rats (7 days old)Material and methods: Study included 37 newborn rats which were randomized to 6 groups; of them study groups were: the group anaesthetized for once (GID) (n=6), the group anaesthesized for five times (GVD) (n=6), the group anaesthesized for ten times (GXD) (n=7); and they received 4.4% desflurane in O2 with a flow rate of 6 L/mn for 2 hours (repeated every 48 hours). The control groups (GIK) (n=6), (GVK) (n=5) (GXK) (n=6) breathed ambient air. 24 hours after the last anaesthesia, rats were sacrificed and their brains were removed and stored at -80 C.Results: Molecular investigation did not show a significant increase in hippocampal tau, phosphorylated tau, acetylcholine esterase and amyloid ß precursor protein levels after 1, 5 and 10 administrations of 0.6 MAC desflurane but ,apoptosis was decreased. When compared with GIK and GVK tau expression levels, GXK tau expression levels were significantly lower (p=0.001, p=0.006). GXD tau expression levels were significantly lower than GID tau expression levels (p=0.001), but there was not any significant difference between GVD and GID tau values (p=0.078). GXD p-tau levels were significantly higher than GID and GVD p-tau levels (p= 0.016, p=0.008). GVD amyloid ß protein expression values were significantly lower than GID and GXD amiloid ß protein expression amount (p=0.001, p=0.001). GXD amyloid ß protein expression amounts were significantly lower than GID amyloid ß protein expression levels (p=0.004).When apoptosis levels of GID, GVD and GXD were compared; GXD apoptosis values were significantly lower than GID and GVD apoptosis levels (p=0.036; p=0.01 respectively).Discussion and conclusion: This study couldn't show a significant increase in hippocampal tau, phosphorylated tau, acetylcholine esterase and amyloid ß protein levels after 1, 5 and 10 administrations of 0.6 MAC desflurane in 7 days old rats. However it was shown that aging causes the tau level, which increases with anaesthesia, to decrease and phosphorylated tau level to increase.Key words: Desflurane, rat, Alzheimer disease, tau, amyloid beta.