Abstract
Extracorporeal circulation (ECC) is the basic support system for patients undergoing
cardiac surgery, during which oxygen free radicals (OFR) are generated and involved
in ischemic reperfusion injury. This study was done to investigate the protective
function of fructose 1–6 diphosphate (FDP) with fresh human red blood cells (RBCs)
as a model in vitro and presumably during ECC and cardiac surgery. RBCs were exposed
to OFR and mechanical trauma, and then FDP was incubated to RBCs alone and then to
RBCs plus OFR. Malondialdehyde (MDA) and red cell filtration rate (RFR) were measured.
There was a significant decrease of MDA in RBCs exposed to FDP plus OFR (p < 0.01,p < 0.001) and an increase of RFR (p < 0.05,p < 0.001) when compared with RBCs alone or with OFR. A negative correlation was found
between MDA and RFR. These results suggest that the protective action of FDP is promising
as an additive during ECC in man so as to improve the blood cell rheology and the
microcirculation in cardiac surgery with ECC.