Effect of alprostadil on erythrocyte deformability in ischemia reperfusion injury

BACKGROUND: Ischemia reperfusion injury (I/R) in lower extremity is a frequent and important clinical phenomenon. Protective effect of alprostadil on local and distant organ injury due to I/R has been well-documented but its effect on erythrocyte deformability needs further investigation. Our aim was to investigate the effect of alprostadil on erythrocyte deformability in infrarenal aorta of rats undergoing I/R. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Our study was conducted with 18 Wistar albino rats. Rats were divided into 3 groups; randomized control group (group C; n = 6), I/R group without alprostadil (group I/R; n = 6) and I/R group with alprostadil 20 mcg.kg(-1), intraperitoneal (group IR-A; n = 6). Packs of erythrocytes were prepared from heparinized blood samples and deformability measurements were done. RESULTS: Comparisons of the control and IR-A groups revealed similar results (p = 0.240). The values of the IR group were significantly higher than those of the control and IR-A groups (p = 0.009, p = 0.026, respectively). CONCLUSION: In our study, we detected unfavourable effects of I/R on erythrocyte deformability, which may lead to disturbance in blood flow and hence tissue perfusion in infrarenal rat aorta. We also found that alprostadil had beneficial effects by reversing undesirable effects of I/R (Fig. 1, Ref. 22). Text in PDF www.elis.sk.