[Clinical effects of lipo-prostaglandin E1 in patients with delayed cerebral vasospasm]

Prostaglandin (PG) E1 is a potent vasodilator on the peripheral vessels and also has an inhibitory action of platelet aggregation. Thus it is expected that PGE1 may be used for the treatment of cerebral vasospasm in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Lipo-PGE1, the lipid emulsified PGE1, is not destroyed in the lung, has much longer half life in the circulation than PGE1 which is rapidly inactivated in the lung. The effects of intravenous injection of lipo-PGE1 on the cerebral hemodynamics and the central conduction time (CCT) of the sensory evoked potential under vasospastic conditions has been studied in eight patients. All these 8 patients demonstrated severe angiographic vasospasm and signs of cerebral ischemia. The 15-20 micrograms of lipo-PGE1 was administered every eight hours for 5 to 7 days. Within 6 hours of the first lipo-PGE1 treatment, the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and the CCT measurements were reported to document the effect of treatment. The average pretreatment of rCBF on the right anterior, middle and posterior cerebral artery were 46.6 +/- 6.8, 56.4 +/- 7.3 and 58.8 +/- 8.9 ml/100 g/min and on the left side were 52.1 +/- 9.2, 49.1 +/- 10.8 and 56.1 +/- 9.2 ml/100 g/min respectively. With treatment these flows increased to 53.0 +/- 6.9, 64.3 +/- 5.3 and 63.0 +/- 4.6 ml/100 g/min respectively on the right side and 60.8 +/- 9.4, 60.6 +/- 9.7 and 60.6 +/- 7.2 ml/100 g/min respectively on the left. The CCT also demonstrated the improvement from 6.36 msec to 6.21 msec by the initial PGE1 treatment.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)