Cardiovascular research
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Cardiovascular research · Dec 1998
Myocardial temperature reduction attenuates necrosis after prolonged ischemia in rabbits.
Previously we observed that a large reduction in infarct size was attained by cooling the risk region of the heart, either before or early after the onset of a 30-min coronary artery occlusion. While this is a standard duration of ischemia used in the rabbit model of infarction, it may not reflect the situation of patients who are reperfused late. The effects of regional hypothermia with a longer duration of ischemia, and when the intervention is applied later, are unknown. This study tests the hypothesis that a local reduction in cardiac temperature protects myocardium during prolonged ischemia (2 h) even if begun well after coronary artery occlusion. ⋯ These results show that reducing myocardial temperature protects ischemic myocardium during a long duration of ischemia even if initiated after coronary artery occlusion.