Progressive Development of Renal Vascular Dysfunction in Brain Death Implicates Reversible Alterations of Nitric Oxide Metabolism

2011

Vascular endothelial dysfunction occurs in the kidney graft from marginal brain death (BD) donors and may be responsible for a low success rate after transplantation.BD was induced in 16 dogs for 6 hours. Immediately after the inflation of the intracranial balloon, the treated group (n = 8) received 40 mg/kg bolus followed by 3 mg/kg/min infusion of L-arginine for 30 minutes. Renal vascular function and hemodynamic and biochemical parameters were determined.BD caused vasoconstriction, increase in renal venous nitrite (4.9 ± 0.8 versus 2.6 ± 0.1, P.05) and myeloperoxidase levels (1.43 ± 0.04 versus 2.43 ± 0.23, P.001), and reduced vasodilatation of renal artery to acetylcholine. Larginine di…