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Vitamin C reduces ischaemia-reperfusion-induced acute lung injury
S R Kearns1, C J Kelly, M Barry
1Department of Surgery, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Beaumont Hospital, Beaumont Road, Dublin 9, Ireland.
Objectives:
to evaluate vitamin C supplementation in the prevention of ischaemia-reperfusion (I-R) induced acute lung injury.
Design:
Sprague-Dawley rats (n =6/group) were randomised into Control, I-R and I-R pretreated with vitamin C (3.3 g over 5 days). Ischaemia-reperfusion injury was induced by 30 minutes infrarenal aortic cross-clamping and 120 minutes reperfusion.
Methods:
pulmonary microvascular injury was measured by broncho-alveolar lavage protein concentration, pulmonary neutrophil infiltration by tissue myeloperoxidase activity and bronchoalveolar lavage neutrophil counts. In a second experiment (n =5/group) neutrophil respiratory burst activity was measured in Control and vitamin C groups.
Results:
ischaemia-reperfusion resulted in a significant increase in both microvascular leakage and pulmonary neutrophil infiltration as measured by bronchoalveolar lavage protein concentration and pulmonary myeloperoxidase activity respectively. Pretreatment with vitamin C significantly attenuated both microvascular leakage and neutrophil infiltration. Neutrophil respiratory burst activity was significantly reduced in the vitamin C group (13.02 m.c.f.+/-0.3) compared with Control (19.04 m.c.f.+/-1. 9),p <0.02.
Conclusion:
these data suggest that oral vitamin C therapy protects against ischaemia-reperfusion-induced acute lung injury, possibly by attenuating neutrophil respiratory burst activity.