CURCUMIN PREVENTING INTESTINAL ISCHEMIA-REPERFUSION INJURY

Ischemia-reperfusion injury is a clinically relevant process. Several drugs have been tested to prevent or reduce its deleterious effects. Curcumin is a natural substance, common in many diets, known to have antioxidant proprieties. Our aim is to check its capacity to prevent intestinal reperfusion injury. METHODS Four groups of six WAG/RijHsd rats (males, 240 g). Three of them had 1 h clamping of the superior mesenteric artery, being sacrificed 4 hours later. One of these groups received no other treatment (control), other was given Curcumin 24h and 2 h prior to ischemia (200 mgr/kg, oral), and the third one was given alpha-Tocopherol 2h prior to ischemia (20 mgr/kg, ip). To assess histological injury four samples from distal ileon were retrieved from each animal. Once embedded in paraffin, histological sections were stained with H-E and blinded, prior to assessing the damage according to Chiu’s scale. Results were analyzed with ANOVA & Dunnet’s and Sidak’s multiple comparison tests. RESULTS In healthy animals, over a scale ranging from 0 to 12, the damaged registered was 0.92 ± 0.56. Ischemic control animals showed an index damage of 10.14 ± 1.43, while those receiving Curcumin only reached 6.15 ± 1.71. Animas pre-treated with alpha-Tocopherol showed an even lower index damage: 4.05 ± 0.62. So both treatments significantly reduced histological damage following intestinal reperfusion (p < 0.0001), being slightly bigger the effect of alpfa-Tocopherol (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION Curcumin given the day before significantly reduces intestinal reperfusion injury, though it does is as much effective as alpha-Tocopherol pre-treatment.