Do lesions of the enteric nervous system occur following intestinal ischemia/reperfusion?

Abstract

PURPOSE: To evaluate tissue lesions, especially those of the intestinal innervation, in an excluded jejunal loop subjected to ischemia and reperfusion in rats. METHODS: To evaluate the role of ischemia and reperfusion lesions in an excluded intestinal loop, four groups of 20 rats were set up: control group (GCEI7) and three experimental groups (GIREI7, GIREI14 and GIREI28). They were all subjected to exclusion of an intestinal segment of six centimeters in length, at a distance of 10 centimeters from the Treitz angle. The 60 animals in the three experimental groups were additionally subjected to ischemia of the vascular pedicle for 30 minutes. The control group and the experimental group GIREI7 were evaluated on the 7th day after the operation. The groups GIREI14 and GIREI28 (which also underwent ischemia) were utilized to evaluate the evolution of the lesion over time, on the 14th and 28th days after the operation, respectively. From the intestinal excluded loop, we take one ring of 0,5 cm distal and proximal, that were fixed in formaline 10% solution in order to do histological (HE) and immuno-hystochemial (PS-100) evaluation (enteric nervous system.) The distal loop was exteriorized in stoma and the proximal part closed with polipropilene 6-0. RESULTS: It was observed a decrease in the number of ganglionic cells in the myenteric plexus in the group subjected to ischemia and reperfusion (GIREI7), in relation to the control group (GCEI7) at the 7th post-operative day (Mann-Whitney test: p = 0.0173 *. Comparing the numbers of ganglionic cells in the myenteric plexus before and after jejunal loop exclusion GCEI7 - (Wilcoxon test: p = 0.0577). GIREI7 - Comparing the numbers of ganglionic cells in the myenteric plexus before and after ischemia (*p = 0.0399). Comparing the percentage variations in ganglionic cells in the myenteric plexus on the 7th, 14th and 28th days after the procedure, in the groups GIREI7, GIREI14 and GIREI28, it was observed that there were no significant alterations. Kruskal-Wallis test: p = 0.6501. CONCLUSION: There was a decrease in the number of ganglionic cells in the myenteric plexus due to ischemia and reperfusion that did not recover in the late post-operative period.