Hearts from male rats were incubated at 37 degrees C for variable periods of global ischaemia. Estimation of kinetic parameters of (Na,K)-ATPase at 37 degrees C in the presence of increasing concentrations of ATP revealed a significant decrease of Vmax in the first 15 minutes of ischaemia with further stabilization at the lowest level in 45-60 minutes of ischaemia. The changes in ATP binding si...

Myocardial protection by pre-conditioning involves increasing the tolerance to ischaemia-reperfusion injury and can be achieved by either mechanical or pharmacological means. Pre-conditioning involves the therapeutic manoeuvre being applied before the start of ischaemia while post-conditioning applies the manoeuvre after the start of ischaemia. The initial method for achieving myocardial protec...

Reperfusion following ischaemia results in endothelial and parenchymal injury through a complex cascade of events. This often occurs in human liver transplantation as well as with major liver resections and is referred to as Ischaemia Reperfusion Injury (IRI). Ischaemic Preconditioning (IPC) is an adaptive response in which tolerance to prolonged ischaemia is induced in a target organ by prior ...

OBJECTIVE The aim was to investigate the effects of acute ischaemia on cardiac repolarizing K+ currents. METHODS We developed a model of acute ischaemia in isolated rat ventricular myocytes transiently surrounded with a mineral oil droplet. During ischaemic challenges, we recorded intracellular pH using the fluorescent probe seminaphthorhodafluor-1 (SNARF-1) and whole-cell K+ currents using t...

It is known that oesophageal pain can imitate angina and also that non specific ECG changes, probably catecholamine mediated, can be similar to those due to true myocardial ischaemia. Both of these can therefore pose a problem for the diagnosis of angina pain due to cardiac ischaemia. We report a patient who had both of these conditions simultaneously, pain on exertion appearing as angina but d...

Ischaemia is a rare complication of injury to a limb but must be excluded in every case. Two distinct types occur: Type I, where a proximal arterial injury gives rise to ischaemia distally; and Type II, where a direct injury gives rise to ischaemia at the site of the injury. Whatever the nature of the insult, an ischaemic contracture only develops as a result of swelling of the soft tissues whe...

Enzyme release by ischaemic myocardium has been used as a hallmark of the infarction process for several decades: in the clinical setting, deterioration of cell membrane integrity, as evidenced by the release of macromolecules such as creatine kinase and lactate dehydrogenase, has been used as quantitative indication of myocardial infarction. Leakage of membrane-impermeable molecules due to sar...

2 Introduction It has been widely documented that plasma ET-1 and big ET-1 levels are increased in patients within a day of onset of acute myocardial infarction [1,2,3,4]. Similar changes in systemic plasma ET-1 are seen in animal models of myocardial ischaemia [5,6]. The source of the released ET-1 appears to be the area subjected to ischaemic damage, since in a study in anaesthetised pigs bot...

AIMS Residual ischaemia following acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is related to an adverse outcome, although the effect of early initiation of statin therapy is unknown. METHODS A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, parallel study was performed, which compared fluvastatin 80 mg daily with placebo in patients with an AMI and total cholesterol of <6.5 mmol.l(-1). Ischaemia was measu...

OBJECTIVES To determine whether effective refractory period (ERP) shortens or lengthens in the first minutes of ischaemia in humans, and the relation between ERP changes and action potential duration (APD). METHODS ERP and monophasic action potential duration (MAPD) were measured from a single left ventricular epicardial site in 26 patients undergoing coronary artery surgery. Cardiopulmonary ...