Protective effect of erdosteine on erythrocyte deformability in a rat model of lower limb ischemia/reperfusion injury

Abstract

Background/aim: The protective effect of erdosteine on local and distant organ injury due to ischemia/reperfusion has been welldocumented but its effect on erythrocyte deformability needs further investigation. Our aim was to investigate the effect of erdosteineon erythrocyte deformability in the infrarenal aorta of rats undergoing ischemia/reperfusion.Materials and methods: Our study was conducted with 18 Wistar albino rats. Rats were divided into 3 groups: a randomized controlgroup (group ‘control’, n = 6), an ischemia/reperfusion group without erdosteine (group ‘ischemia/reperfusion’, n = 6), and an ischemia/reperfusion group with erdosteine at 150 mg kg–1, intraperitoneally (group ‘ischemia/reperfusion – erdosteine’, n = 6). Packs oferythrocytes were prepared from heparinized blood samples and deformability measurements were conducted.Results: Comparisons of the control and ischemia/reperfusion – erdosteine groups revealed similar results (P = 0.051). The values ofthe ischemia/reperfusion group were significantly higher than those of the control and ischemia/reperfusion – erdosteine groups (P <0.0001 and P = 0.024, respectively). Relative resistance, a marker of erythrocyte deformability, was increased significantly by ischemia/reperfusion compared to the control and ischemia/reperfusion – erdosteine groups (P < 0.05).Conclusion: We detected unfavorable effects of ischemia/reperfusion on erythrocyte deformability, which may lead to disturbancein blood flow and hence tissue perfusion in the infrarenal rat aorta. We also found that erdosteine had beneficial effects by reversingundesirable effects of ischemia/reperfusion. However, these promising results should be further supported by more detailed studies withlarger volumes.