The protective effect and mechanism of mild hypothermia on pig lung injury after cardiopulmonary resuscitation

Objective: To explore the protective effect and mechanism of mild hypothermia on lung tissue damage after cardiopulmonary resuscitation in pigs. Methods: In this experiment, we electrically stimulated 16 pigs (30±2kg) for 10 minutes to cause ventricular fibrillation. The successfully resuscitated animals were randomly divided into two groups, a mild hypothermia group and a control group. We took arterial blood 0.5h, 1h, 3h and 6h after ROSC recovery in the two groups of animals for blood gas analysis. We observed the structural changes of lung tissue under an electron microscope and calculate the wet weight/dry weight (W/D) ratio. We quantitatively analyzed the expression differences of representative inflammatory factors (IL-6 and TNF-α) through the Elisa test. We detected the expression levels of Bax, Bcl-2 and Caspase-3 proteins in lung tissues by Western blot. Results: The 3 h and 6 h after spontaneous circulation was restored, compared with the control group, PaO2/FiO2 decreased significantly (P <0.05). In addition, the pathological changes, lung W/D and lung MDA of the mild hypothermia group were better than those of the control group. The levels of IL-6 and TNF-α in the lung tissue of the mild hypothermia group were significantly lower than those of the control group (P <0.05). The content of Caspase-3 and Bax in the mild hypothermia group was significantly lower than that of the control group. Conclusion: Our experiments have shown that mild hypothermia can reduce lung tissue damage after cardiopulmonary resuscitation.