Thermal pharmacology: history and definition

Abstract

The literature review shows that temperature pharmacology is a new scientific and practical direction of pharmacology, in which the local effect of drugs on individual tissues, organs or parts of the body is realized at a certain local temperature. This trend was formed in Russia at the end of the 20th century due to the fact that such great surgeons as V.A. Negovsky, E.N. Meshalkin and V.I. Shumakov proved in clinical conditions that hypothermia prolongs the safety of the brain, heart and kidneys in the absence of arterial blood and/or oxygen. Then, under the influence of the successful use of local hypothermia for therapeutic purposes in such areas as resuscitation, transplantology and surgical treatment of heart and major vascular diseases, the study of the mechanism of action of local hypothermia as a medicine began. Intensive research in this area began in 1981 at the Department of Pharmacology of the Izhevsk Medical Institute. In the following years, the features of the local action of local hypothermia, drugs and their combinations on mitochondria, blood, blood vessels, myocardium, intestines and limbs of experimental animals and patients in normal conditions, as well as in hypoxia and ischemia were studied. Very soon, the results of research allowed to reveal the main mechanisms of action of local hypothermia and the laws of temperature dependence of the local action of drugs. This allowed to invent several original methods of pharmaco-cold and pharmaco-warm effects that increase the effectiveness of treatment of arterial obstruction of the extremities, inflammatory processes and parenchymal bleeding. It is indicated, that the main provisions of temperature pharmacology were formulated by 1988. The chronology of resolving the contradictions that arose at that time between the widespread public opinion and new ideas about the role of local temperature in the mechanism of local action of drugs in hypoxia, ischemia, inflammation of organs and tissues, and bleeding is shown. Achievements and prospects of development of temperature pharmacology in medicine, biology, pharmacology and pharmacy are shown.