Metabolic and Functional Effects of Carbohydrate Substrate with Single-Dose and Multiple-Dose Potassium Cardioplegia

The isolated working rat heart model of ischemic arrest was used to determine if the addition of carbohydrate substrate to our cardioplegic solution enhanced metabolic and functional myocardial protection. A single-dose cardioplegia technique, as used in earlier studies that showed glucose to have a harmful effect, and a multidose technique similar to that used clinically were studied and compared. Because recent data suggest that fructose-1,6-diphosphate (FDP) may have a protective effect with ischemia, this substrate was also tested and compared to glucose and fructose. In this model, single-dose cardioplegia resulted in poor protection from ischemic injury in all study groups. There was marked improvement in myocardial protection with multidose cardioplegia, and further substantial protection of myocardial function, high-energy phosphate levels, and glycogen stores when carbohydrate substrate was added to the arrest solution. The solution with a higher concentration of glucose (0.5%) provided the best overall metabolic and functional recovery and was clearly superior to fructose and FDP, both of which had about the same protective effect. Improved protection with carbohydrate substrate was accompanied by evidence of substantial increase in glycolytic flux, supporting the idea that increased anaerobic glycolysis can help protect the ischemic myocardium when intermittent reinfusion of cardioplegic solution is done.