Ex vivo Coronary Angiography: Safety of Iopromide in Cold Preservation of Pig Hearts.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the effects of intracoronary iopromide (Ultravist®, Germany) administration on the recovery of cardiac pump function and cardiomyocytes metabolism during ex vivo cold preservation of pig hearts in the early posttransplant period.

METHODS

Three-month-old mini pigs weighing 73 ± 2.8 kg were used as experimental models (n=12). Physiological parameters were obtained with the IntelliVue MP70 system (Philips, Netherlands). Blood samples were taken from the coronary sinus to evaluate myocardial ischemia markers - troponin I, creatine phosphokinase-MB, lactate dehydrogenase, and lactate - and apex biopsy was performed before and after the ischemia period according to the protocol. Myocardial samples were taken from the left ventricle and prepared according to the protocol either.

RESULTS

Twelve orthotopic heart transplantations were performed during the study. Sample size was divided into two groups with six each. Cardiac output was 5.11 (4.99; 5.41) l/min and 5.77 (4.97; 6.62) l/min (P-0.0009) after 120 minutes of cardiac activity in both groups. Change of lactate dehydrogenase, creatine phosphokinase-MB, and troponin I levels in the coronary sinus blood were significantly higher in the early reperfusion period. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the groups (P>0.05). Myocardial oxygen consumption was considerably reduced during reperfusion but returned to baseline by 60 minutes of postischemia without significant differences between groups (P>0.05).

CONCLUSION

We observed that intracoronary iopromide administration was safe during the ex vivo stage cold preservation phase of the study. Intracoronary iopromide administration did not affect cardiac pump function and cardiomyocytes metabolism in the early posttransplant period.