Total antioxidant capacity and lipid peroxidation in liver transplantation

Liver transplantation is an accepted therapy for chronic liver disease patients. These patients generally have low levels of fat soluble vitamins, which have important antioxidant roles. Therefore, this study was undertaken to investigate whether such patients had evidence of antioxidant depletion and increased lipid peroxidation before transplant and whether the subsequent ischemia and reperfusion encountered during liver transplantation have any effect on antioxidant levels and lipid peroxidation. We assessed plasma total antioxidant capacity and serum lipid peroxide in 12 patients undergoing liver transplantation and equal numbers of healthy subjects. We found that before reperfusion, antioxidant levels were significantly decreased along with significantly elevated lipid peroxidation levels as compared with healthy controls (P<0.001). On reperfusion of the liver graft, further declined values of total antioxidant accompanied with highly elevated lipid peroxidation were seen than those of pre-reperfusion samples (P<0.001). This data shows that patients undergoing liver transplant have lowered antioxidant defenses and evidence of free radical damage, which compound the additional insult of reperfusion injury. Therefore antioxidant therapy in these patients before transplantation may ameliorate the effects of reperfusion.