Renal circulation and microcirculation during intra-abdominal hypertension in a porcine model

The purpose of the study is to further investigate the effects of increased intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) on renal hemodynamics and renal perfusion, and to evaluate the renal cortical and sublingual microcirculation by sidestream dark field (SDF) imaging, both with a porcine model.

IAP was increased stepwise to 10, 15, 20, 25 mmHg, during which hemodynamic parameters, urinary output, renal contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS), sublingual and renal SDF videos were all recorded from 12 pigs.

Wash in time (WT) and time to peak (TTP) prolonged significantly (p<0.05), while peak intensity (PI) wash in slope (WS) and AUC (area under curve) in CEUS declined significantly (p<0.05) compared with baseline when IAP elevated to 25 mm Hg. With an increase of abdominal pressure, sublingual microvascular flow index (MFI) drop significantly, especially upon IAP was over 20 mmHg. But other parameters such as the total vascular density (TVD), De Backer Score, proportion of perfused vessels (PPV), perfused vessel density (PVD), and heterogeneity index (HI) of tongue were not significantly changed. With increasing IAP, renal vascular resistance increased and MFI decreased about 30%. RFG, instead of RFG showed a moderate correlation with AUC (R=0.47, p<0.05) and MFI (R=0.49, p<0.05).

CEUS is a safe, real-time dynamic, noninvasive and simple technique to evaluate renal microvascular perfusion in intra-abdominal hypertension. Descending slope, PI and AUC can be used for the diagnosis of the renal microvascular damage in a porcine model of IAP-induced renal impairment. Also, SDF on the surface of the kidney is a useful tool to evaluate the microcirculation of kidney but sublingual SDF imaging was barely useful.