The Journal of heart and lung transplantation : the official publication of the International Society for Heart Transplantation
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J. Heart Lung Transplant. · Jul 1991
Comparative StudyFunctional recovery of hearts after cardioplegia and storage in University of Wisconsin and in St. Thomas' Hospital solutions.
There are conflicting reports of the beneficial effects of University of Wisconsin (UW) cardioplegic solution used in heart preservation techniques. Therefore we investigated the efficacy of myocardial protection in adult rat hearts subjected to single-dose infusion (3 minutes) of nonoxygenated cardioplegic solutions (UW or St. Thomas' Hospital solution No. 2 [STH]) and stored at 4 degrees C by immersion in the same solution or in saline solution. ⋯ In contrast, hearts arrested and stored in STH solution for 5 hours rapidly established normal left ventricular functions (aortic flow, 111.5% +/- 2.5%; cardiac output, 99.1% +/- 1.2%; coronary flow, 85.0% +/- 3.4%; heart rate, 95.8% +/- 2.7%; and aortic pressure, 94.6%). A group of hearts arrested with STH solution but stored in saline solution recovered more slowly, had only partial return of function (aortic flow, 73.6% +/- 14.8%; p less than 0.01 vs STH/STH group), and had significantly greater tissue water content (8.020 +/- 0.080 vs 6.870 +/- 0.126 ml/gm dry wt; p less than 0.01). These results demonstrate the superior preservation of explanted hearts at 4 degrees C obtained by STH cardioplegic solution compared with UW solution under conditions used for transplantation.