Comparison of warm and cold ischemia of the canine small intestine

Warm and cold ischemia-reperfusion injuries to canine small intestine was compared. In the warm ischemic model, the superior mesenteric artery of mongrel dogs was clamped for 2 h and then released (group A). As a cold ischemia model, canine small intestines were harvested with cold lactated Ringer solution, preserved for 24 h in cold LR solution and then autotransplanted (group B). After ischemia and during reperfusion, activities of maltase (MAL), myeloperoxides (MPO), xanthine dehydrogenase (XD) and xanthine oxidase (XO) were measured as well as hypoxanthine (HX) concentration. MAL activities were not changed during warm or cold ischemia, whereas it was remarkably decreased after revascularization in both the groups. Neutrophil infiltration after reperfusion was shown by the increase of MPO activities to 8 and 1.5 U/mg protein in groups A and B respectively from a normal value of 0.35 U/mg protein. During warm ischemia, %XO (XO/XD + XO) was increased from 18.4 to 84.9% for 2 h. In contrast, %XO was not changed for 24 h of cold ischemia. Tissue accumulation of HX was increased 2.8 times from a normal value of 1.06, 2 h after warm ischemia, but there was almost neither accumulation of HX nor the conversion of XD to XO in 24 h cold ischemia. It was observed that warm and cold ischemia caused similar injury after reperfusion in spite of the striking difference in the conversion of XD to XO and accumulation of HX. Thus, it is suggested that the XO system is not always necessary for ischemia-reperfusion injury.