Ann Thorac Surg 1995;59:293
© 1995 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
Discussion
Discussion
See also page 288.
DR D. GLENN PENNINGTON (St. Louis, MO): For those of us who are not terribly familiar with myocyte shortening, is the change from 5% to 3% important? Would that be important clinically?
DR HIRD: The drop in myocyte percent shortening from 5% to 3% can be correlated directly to a significant drop in the fractional shortening of whole hearts. So it would seem to us that this is a significant drop.
DR JOHN W. HAMMON, JR (Winston-Salem, NC): That was a very nice paper, and I think your data are very hard to refute. My question is, is thrombin present in the extravascular space in hearts after ischemia? Because thrombin is a very large molecule, you would not expect it to be in direct contact with the myocyte unless somehow it leaked through or was transported with monocytes or other cells. Do you have any information on that?
DR HIRD: No, that is something we have not studied yet. We do know that with cardiopulmonary bypass and ischemia there is an increase in capillary permeability, so we suspect that thrombin may traverse the endothelial barrier and interact with myocytes, but future studies looking at this would be worthwhile.
Related Article
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Direct Effects of Thrombin on Myocyte Contractile Function
- R. Barry Hird, Fred A. Crawford, Jr, Rupak Mukherjee, and Francis G. Spinale
Ann. Thorac. Surg. 1995 59: 288-293.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
