[Sodium dichloracetate: its application to the therapeutics of experimental hyperiactatemia (author's transl)]

Different types of experimental hyperlactatemia and hyperpyruvicemia with or without lowering of blood pH were induced in anesthetized dogs. The initially studied experimental model was the hyperlactatemia and hyperpyruvicemia with lowering of blood pH induced by the intraduodenal administration of high doses of phenformin. Intravenous perfusion of sodium dichloroacetate (150 mg/kg infused during 20 minutes), which acts on the enzymatic complex of pyruvate dehydrogenase, reduced the hyperiactatemia and hyperpyruvicemia with or without acidosis provoked by phenformin injected intraduodenally (30 mg/kg), by intense muscular work, by hypoxia or by continous perfusion or adrenaline. Exogenous or endogenous insulin combined with sodium dichloracetate reduced the hyperlactatemia and hyperpyruvicemia as well as the changes in blood pH provoked by phenformin, more strongly than did sodium dichloroacetate alone. These findings have been confirmed in the conscious dog.