[Experimental studies on the modifiability of ischemic acute renal failure by saralasin]

To estimate the renal ischemia-protective effect of saralasin, model studies were performed on rats and dogs. Acute ischemic renal failure was induced in rats by clamping off the vascular pedicle for 90 minutes. When the drug was prophylactically administered before the ischemia episode, a premature increase in post-ischemic plasma urea level and a shortening of survival time of the animals were observed compared with the untreated control. Following auto-transplantation of 24-hour cold-stored dog kidneys, the infusion of saralasin failed to improve renal blood flow (MRBF), glomerular filtration rate (KrCl) and fractional sodium excretion (FENa). On the other hand, the angiotensin blockade with captopril led to an increase in MRBF which was associated, however, with significant decreases in KrCl and FENa. This discrepancy was suggested to be due to a predominant postglomerular vasodilation. The results show that the application of saralasin before renal ischemia may aggravate the loss of renal function whilst the post-ischemic administration of the drug has no substantial effect on the acute failure of transplanted kidneys.