Chronic hind limb ischemia reduces myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury in the rabbit heart by promoting coronary angiogenesis/arteriogenesis.
OBJECTIVE
Application of ischemic injury in a remote organ may provide protection of other tissues against ischemia. We hypothesized that ischemia in the rabbit hind limb protects against myocardial ischemia by increasing angiogenesis/arteriogenesis.


METHODS
In the first experiment, severe limb ischemia (LI) was induced in 26 New Zealand White rabbits by excision of the femoral artery while another 26 served as controls (no ischemia; sham operation [SHO]). Four weeks later, the blood vessels of the subendocardial and intramyocardial areas of the excised hearts were counted. In the second experiment, 14 LI rabbits and 14 SHO controls were subjected to 30 min of regional heart ischemia and 3 h reperfusion. Infarct size and the areas-at-risk were determined.


RESULTS
Compared with controls, LI rabbits showed more subendocardial (103+/-14 vs. 113+/-13 capillaries/mm2, respectively; p=0.01) and intramyocardial blood vessels (102+/-12 vs. 114+/-16 capillaries/mm(2), respectively; p=0.009). LI rabbits had significantly smaller infarct size compared with the SHO animals (infarct areas/areas-at-risk: 14.37+/-11.23% vs. 31.31+/-13.73%, respectively; p=0.003).


CONCLUSIONS
Chronic hind LI reduces myocardial infarct size by promoting coronary angiogenesis/arteriogenesis in an experimental model.
Varnavas
Varnavas C
VC
Second Department of Cardiology, Red Cross Hospital, Athens 115 26, Greece.
Paraskevas
Kosmas I
KI
Iliodromitis
Efstathios K
EK
Zoga
Anastasia
A
Glava
Irini
I
Kaklamanis
Loukas
L
Spartinos
John
J
Lyras
Theodore
T
Kremastinos
Dimitrios T
DT
Mikhailidis
Dimitri P
DP
Kyriakides
Zenon S
ZS
D000818:Animals; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003326:Coronary Circulation / Q000502:physiology; D006614:Hindlimb / Q000098:blood supply*; D007511:Ischemia / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D019194:Ischemic Preconditioning / Q000379:methods*; D009133:Muscular Atrophy / Q000503:physiopathology; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000517:prevention & control; D015428:Myocardial Reperfusion Injury / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology; D018919:Neovascularization, Physiologic / Q000502:physiology*; D011817:Rabbits