Atorvastatin Can Prevent Hepatic Remote Reperfusion Injury

BACKGROUND Some studies have shown that statins have a promising effect on protection against reperfusion injury. AIM To evaluate the ability of ischemic postconditioning, statins and both associated to prevent or minimize reperfusion injury in the liver of rats subjected to ischemia and reperfusion by abdominal aorta clamping. METHOD Were used 41 Wistar rats, which were distributed into five groups: ischemia and reperfusion (I/R), ischemic postcondictioning (IPC), postconditioning + statin (IPC+S), statin (S) and Sham. It was performed a medium laparotomy, dissection and isolation of the infra-renal abdominal aorta; excepting Sham group, all the others were submitted to the aorta clamping for 70 min (ischemia) and posterior clamping removing (reperfusion, 70 min). In the IPC and IPC+S groups, postconditioning was performed between the ischemia and reperfusion phases by four cycles of reperfusion and ischemia lasting 30 s each. In IPC+S and S groups, preceding the surgical procedure, administration of 3.4 mg/day of atorvastatin was performed for seven days by gavage. The left hepatic lobe was removed for histological study and euthanasia was performed. RESULTS The mean hepatic injury was 3 in the I/R group, 1.5 in the IPC group, 1.2 in the IPC+S group, 1.2 in the S group, and 0 in the SHAM group. The I/R group had a higher degree of tissue injury compared to the others in the statistical analysis and there was no difference between the others (p<0.01). CONCLUSION Ischemic postconditioning and atorvastatin were able to minimize hepatic reperfusion injury, either alone or in combination.