Ischemic Preconditioning Produces Comparable Protection Against Hepatic Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury Under Isoflurane...

Various volatile anesthetics and ischemic preconditioning (IP) have been demonstrated to exert protective effect against ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury in liver. We aimed to determine whether application of IP under isoflurane and sevoflurane anesthesia would confer protection against hepatic I/R injury in rats.

Thirty-eight rats weighing 270 to 300 grams were randomly divided into 2 groups: isoflurane (1.5%) and sevoflurane (2.5%) anesthesia groups. Each group was subdivided into sham (n = 3), non-IP (n = 8; 45 minutes of hepatic ischemia), and IP (n = 8, IP consisting of 10-minute ischemia plus 15-minute reperfusion before prolonged ischemia) groups. The degree of hepatic injury and expressions of B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2) and caspase 3 were compared at 2 hours after reperfusion.

Hepatic ischemia induced significant degree of I/R injuries in both isoflurane and sevoflurane non-IP groups. In both anesthetic groups, introduction of IP dramatically attenuated I/R injuries as marked by significantly lower aspartate aminotransferase and aminotransferase levels and better histologic grades compared with corresponding non-IP groups. There were 2.3- and 1.7-fold increases in Bcl-2 mRNA levels in isoflurane and sevoflurane IP groups, respectively, compared with corresponding non-IP groups (both P < .05). Caspase 3 level was significantly high in the isoflurane non-IP group compared with the sham group; however, there were no differences among the sevoflurane groups.

The degree of hepatic I/R injury was significantly high in both isoflurane and sevoflurane groups in rats. However, application of IP significantly protected against I/R injury in both volatile anesthetic groups to similar degrees, and upregulation of Bcl-2 might be an important mechanism.