Jin

Background: To investigate therapeutic effects of hydrogen-rich saline (HRS) combined with hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) in an experimental rat model of Acute Lung Injury (ALI). Methods: 40 Male Sprague-Dawlay rats were randomly divided into sham, LPS, LPS + HBO, LPS + HRS and LPS + HBO + HRS groups. ALI was induced by an intratracheal injection of LPS, then the rats were respectively given single agent treatment of HBO or HRS or HBO + HRS treatment. The treatments were continued for 3 days in such experimental rat model of ALI. At the end of experiment, the lung pathological , inflammatory factors , and cell apoptosis in the pulmonary tissue were detected by Tunel method and cell apoptosis rate was calculated accordingly. Results: In the groups treated with HBO + HRS, pulmonary pathological data, wet-dry weight ratio and inflammatory factors of pulmonary tissues and aveolar lavage fluid were signficantly superiror to those of the sham group（P<0.05）. Cell apoptosis detection revealed that no matter single agent treatment of HRS or HBO, or combination treatment , could all alleviate cell apoptosis, and HRS combined with HBO treatment was obviously superior to single treatment（P<0.05）. Conclusions: HRS or HBO single treatment could decrease inflammatory cytokines release in lung tissue, reduce accumulation of oxidative products and alleviate apoptosis of pulmoanry cells, then lead to positive therapeutic effects on ALI induced by LPS. Furthermore, HBO combined with HRS treatment presented a synergy effect on cell apoptosis decrease, and a declined trend in inflammatory cytokines release and related inflammatory products generation, compared with single treatment.