Hemodynamic and metabolic changes caused by regional ischemia in porcine heart

Myocardial ischemia was induced in the pig by reducing the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) flow to 26% of its control value. After one hour, the LAD was reperfused for 50 minutes. During ischemia and reperfusion, cardiac output correlated strongly with arterial levels of lactate and nucleosides (all r less than - 0.85). Myocardial inosine production seems to be a good marker of ischemia because it correlated very well with myocardial lactate production (r = 0.99).