[Clinical study of Astragalus injection plus ligustrazine in protecting myocardial ischemia reperfusion injury].

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the mechanism of Astragalus injection plus ligustrazine in preventing the occurrence of myocardial ischemia reperfusion injury (MIRI) during open heart surgery of cardiopulmonary bypass, and the treating principle of MIRI in TCM.

METHODS

Twenty-four patients suffering from either valvular heart diseases or congenital ventricular septal defect were randomly divided into three treated groups (Astragalus, ligustrazine, Astragalus plus ligustrazine) and the control group, 6 in each group. Blood samples were taken via subclavian central vein at the time before anesthesia (T1), 10 minutes of occlusion of aorta (T2), 10 minutes (T3) and 30 minutes (T4) after the release, and the end of operation (about 180 minutes after release, T5) respectively; EKG was observed, and the levels of asparate aminotransferase (AST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine kinase (CK), MB isoenzyme of CK (CK-MB), malondialdehyde (MDA) and the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), nitric oxide (NO), nitric oxide synthetase (NOS) were determined.

RESULTS

The treated groups could reduce the levels of AST, LDH, CK, CK-MB, MDA, SOD compared with the control group, particularly Astragalus plus ligustrazine, there had significant difference (P < 0.05, P < 0.01). In NO activity improvement, Astragalus plus ligustrazine won the best effect, Astragalus group the next.

CONCLUSIONS

The mechanism of MIRI is Qi deficiency and blood stasis in TCM, its treating principles should be promoting Qi and removing the blood stasis. According to the authors' study, Astragalus plus ligustrazine could effectively protect against MIRI, which is better than using the 2 medicines separately.