Remote ischemic preconditioning reduces myocardial injury after coronary artery bypass surgery with crystalloid cardioplegic arrest

Remote ischemic preconditioning (RIPC) with transient upper limb ischemia reduces myocardial injury in patients undergoing on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) with cross-clamp fibrillation or blood cardioplegia for myocardial protection. Whether or not such protection is still operative when standard crystalloid cardioplegic arrest is used is uncertain. Fifty-three consecutive, non-diabetic patients with triple-vessel disease and 64 +/- A 12 years of age (mean +/- A SD), who underwent elective CABG surgery with crystalloid (Bretschneider) cardioplegic arrest, were allocated in a prospective, randomized, single-blinded protocol to receive either a RIPC protocol (3 cycles of 5 min transient left upper arm ischemia induced by inflating a blood pressure cuff to 200 mmHg with 5 min of reperfusion) or control, respectively, after induction of anesthesia. Cardiac troponin I (cTnI) concentration was measured preoperatively and over 72 h postoperatively, and the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated. Peak postoperative cTnI concentration was significantly reduced from 13.7 +/- A 7.7 ng/mL in controls to 8.9 +/- A 4.4 ng/mL in RIPC (P = 0.008). Mean cTnI concentration was significantly lower at 6, 12, 24, and 48 h after surgery (ANOVA; P < 0.0001) in the RIPC patients (N = 27) than in controls (N = 26), resulting in a 44.5% reduction of cTnI (AUC at 72 h). RIPC by repetitive inflation of a cuff around the left upper arm before surgery enhances myocardial protection in patients undergoing CABG surgery with antegrade cold crystalloid cardioplegia.