Advantage of Ischemic Preconditioning for Hepatic Resection in Pigs

Background: Ischemic preconditioning (IP) and intermittent inflow occlusion (IO) have provided beneficial outcomes in hepatic resection. However, comparison of these two procedures against warm hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury has not been studied enough. Materials and methods: Pigs that had undergone 65% hepatectomy were subjected to Control (120 min continuous ischemia, n = 6), IP (10 min ischemia and 10 min reperfusion, followed by 120 min continuous ischemia, n = 6), and IO (120 min ischemia in the form of eight successive periods of 15 min ischemia and 5 min reperfusion, n = 6). We evaluated hepatocyte injury by aspartate aminotransferase, lactate dehydrogenase and hepaplastin test, hepatic microcirculation by hepatic tissue blood flow (HTBF) and endothelin (ET)-1, inflammatory response by tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and histopathology after reperfusion. Results: IP prevented hepatocyte injury, HTBF disturbance, and hepatocyte necrosis in histopathology as well as IO. These two groups showed significantly better outcomes than Control. IP produced significantly less ET-1 and TNF-α than IO. Conclusions: IP ameliorated hepatic warm ischemia-reperfusion injury. Furthermore, IP gained more advantages in preventing chemokine production such as ET-1 and inflammatory response over IO. IP could take the place of IO for hepatectomy.