The protective and therapeutic effect of tetramethylpyrazine against spinal cord ischemic injury in rabbits / 中华麻醉学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the effect of tetramethylpyrazine(TMP), a traditional Chinese herbal medicine, on the neural injury caused by spinal cord ischemia and reperfusion in rabbit.Methods Twenty-two male New Zealand white rabbits were anesthetized with isoflurane. Spinal cord ischemia was induced by 20min by infra-renal aortic occlusion. Animals were randomly allocated to 3 groups. Group C received no pharmacologic intervention. Group P and T received 30 mg?kg -1 TMP infused iv at a constant rate over 30min before aortic crossclamping(prevention) and after reperfusion(therapeutic) respectively. Neurologic deficit was assessed at 4, 8, 12, 24 and 48h after reperfusion using neurologic dificit score(NDS 4 = normal, 0 = paraplegia) . The animals were sacrificed at 48h after reperfusion and spinal cords (L 5-7) were removed immediately for histopathologic study.Results All animals survived the experiment. The NDSs at each observation interval were significantly higher in group P and T than those in group C (P