Functional capillary density in ischemic conditioning: implications for esophageal resection with the gastric conduit.
BACKGROUND
Ischemia may lead to leakage at the esophagogastric anastomosis after esophagectomy. The aim of this study was to investigate time dependent changes of gastric microcirculation after ischemic conditioning.


METHODS
Twenty male Lewis rats were used and analyzed in 3 study groups and 1 control group. Group 1 (n = 5) underwent ligation of the left gastric artery and intravital fluorescence microscopy (IVM) on day 0; group 2 (n = 5) underwent IVM at 28 days after ligation of the LGA; and group 3 (n = 5) underwent IVM at 56 days after ligation of the LGA. The controls (n = 5) underwent sham surgery and IVM at 28 days thereafter. IVM was used to analyze gastric microcirculation by means of functional capillary density.


RESULTS
Ligation of the LGA immediately led to significant reduction of perfusion at the lesser (100.5 +/- 3.1 microm/mm(2) vs 220.4 +/- 7.4 microm/mm(2); P <.001) and greater curvatures (195.1 +/- 7.9 microm/mm(2) vs 234.1 +/- 9.4 microm/mm(2); P = .013). During 28 days, microcirculation at the lesser curve ameliorated (164.9 +/- 12.8 microm/mm(2)) and reached normal values after 56 days (215.8 +/- 7.4 microm/mm(2)). At the greater curve, microcirculation was improved during 4 (261.3 +/- 8 microm/mm(2)P = .039) and 8 weeks (317.9 +/- 10.3 microm/mm(2); P <.001 vs control).


CONCLUSIONS
Gastric microperfusion continuously improves after partial devascularization. The results support further clinical studies to optimize gastric ischemic conditioning in patients undergoing esophagectomy.
Mittermair
Christof
C
Department of General and Transplant Surgery, Medical University Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
Klaus
Alexander
A
Scheidl
Stephan
S
Maglione
Manuel
M
Hermann
Martin
M
Margreiter
Raimund
R
Nguyen
Ningh
N
Weiss
Helmut
H
D000714:Anastomosis, Surgical; D000818:Animals; D002196:Capillaries / Q000502:physiology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D016629:Esophagectomy; D004943:Esophagogastric Junction / Q000098:blood supply*; D019194:Ischemic Preconditioning; D008297:Male; D008833:Microcirculation / Q000502:physiology; D018919:Neovascularization, Physiologic / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D011917:Rats, Inbred Lew; D013270:Stomach / Q000098:blood supply*