• Khalil Pourkhalili, Sohrab Hajizadeh, Taki Tiraihi, Zahra Akbari, Mansour Esmailidehaj, Mohammad Reza Bigdeli, and Ali Khoshbaten.
• Department of Physiology, School of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
• J Cardiovasc Med (Hagerstown). 2009 Aug 1; 10 (8): 635-42.

BackgroundHyperoxic preconditioning is known to protect the heart against necrosis and contractile dysfunction, but protection against arrhythmias has not been well characterized.ObjectiveThe authors hypothesized that pre-exposure to normobaric hyperoxia (H) reduces ischemia and reperfusion-induced arrhythmias in isolated rat hearts.MethodsFollowing 60 and 180 min of hyperoxia treatment, rat hearts were isolated immediately (H60 and H180) or 24 h afterward (H60/24 and H180/24), and subjected to 30 min of regional ischemia followed by 120 min of reperfusion. Occurrence, number, and duration of arrhythmias were analyzed during ischemia and reperfusion. In addition, cardiac infarct size was also assessed.ResultsSixty and 180 min of breathing hyperoxic gas induced significant protection against severe ischemia and reperfusion-induced arrhythmias. Total number of premature ventricular beats was markedly attenuated by hyperoxia pre-exposure, especially in H60 and H180 groups. Duration of ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation was also affected by hyperoxia. Hyperoxia reduced the number of ventricular tachycardia episodes in ischemia and reperfusion phase. Accordingly, severity of arrhythmias (arrhythmia score) and infarct size were lower in hyperoxia-treated groups. The effects were more pronounced using hyperoxia immediately before harvesting the heart.ConclusionThese results indicate that hyperoxic preconditioning attenuates ventricular ischemia and reperfusion-induced arrhythmias in isolated rat hearts, decreases cardiac infarct size, and improves postischemic heart function. The effects seem to depend on the time course after hyperoxia treatment.

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