Affiliations: [a] Department of Ultrasonography, the People’s Hospital of Deyang City, Deyang, China
| [b] Department of Ultrasonography, the Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China
| [c] Department of Pharmacy, the Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China
| [d] Department of Anesthesiology, the People’s Hospital of Deyang City, Deyang, China
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding authors: Mingxing Li, and Zhijian Luo, Department of Ultrasonography, Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou Sichuan Province 646000, P. R. China. Tel.: +86 830 3615230; Fax: +86 830 3165582; E-mails: lmx526@sina.com (Mingxing Li), 5456959@qq.com (Zhijian Luo).
Note: [1] First author: Xiaoying Sun.
Abstract: BACKGROUND:Renal ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury often occurs in various clinical events, and its incidence and mortality have been increasing. OBJECTIVE:To investigate the value of contrast enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) in the monitoring of dexamethasone in the improvement of renal I/R injury in rats. METHODS:Eighteen healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into sham-operated, I/R, and I/R surgery plus dexamethasone treatment (Dexa) groups. In the I/R group 45-minute renal ischemia with 24 h reperfusion period was monitored. Time-intensity curve (TIC)-derived parameters, which included peak value, time to peak (TP), area under the curve (AUC), and mean transit time (MTT) were compared to the blood creatinine, urea, Caspase-1, and NLRP3 levels. RESULTS:The I/R group showed an increased peak value, prolonged TP and MTT, and greater AUC (P < 0.05). The Dexa group showed shorter TP and MTT, and smaller AUC (P < 0.05). Results show that the associations between (i) TP, AUC, and MTT and (ii) creatinine, urea, Caspase-1, and NLRP3 levels were significant (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION:Dexamethasone can alleviate renal I/R injury in rats, which may be related to the inhibition of NLRP3 and caspase-1. CEUS can quantitatively measure this change, in which the changes in TP, AUC and MMT values have considerable reference values.
