Original Article

Does Plasma Nitric Oxide Concentration Correlate with the Pathological Grade of Rejection after Lung Allograft?

Young-Sik Park
Author Information & Copyright
Department of Thoracic and Cardivascular Surgery, College of Medicine, Ewha Womans University, Korea.

Copyright ⓒ 1996. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jul 24, 2015

Abstract

Objective

Experiments were designed to investigate whether there is any correlation between concentration of plasma nitric oxide and pathological severity of acute rejection after lung allograft.

Methods

After single lung allograft, dogs were immunosuppressed with triple standard therapy and divided into 2 groups. Group 1(Immunosuppression ; n=4) was maintained on immunosuppression as controls. In group 2(Rejection ; n=15), triple therapy was discontinued to induce acute rejection from postoperative day 5. Plasma concentration of nitric oxide was measured by chemiluminescence method prior to surgery and at postoperative day 9. At postoperative day 9, dogs were sacrificed and rejection was graded pathologically by a working formulation for the standardization of nomenclature in the diagnosis of heart and lung rejection: lung rejection study group.

Plasma nitric oxide level of day 9 was compared to that of prior to surgery in each group. Correlation between plasma nitric oxide level and pathological grade of acute rejection at day 9 in group 2(Rejection) was examined.

Results

In group 2(Rejection), plasma nitric oxide level fo day 9 was elevated significantly, compared to that of prior to surgery(12.28±2.10 vs 6.46 0.57µM/L ; p<0.05).But plasma nitric oxide level of day 9 didn't significantly correlate with the pathological grades of rejection in group 2(Spearman's coefficient r=-0.2094 ; p>0.05).

Conclusion

Plasma concentration of nitric oxide was elevated during acute rejection, but didn't correlate with the pathological severity of rejection.

Keywords: Lung allograft; Acute rejection; Nitric oxide