|
|
||||||||||
|
J Am Coll Cardiol, 2000; 35:83-88 © 2000 by the American College of Cardiology Foundation |
a Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Cardiology Unit, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy
b Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Pisa, Italy
Manuscript received July 31, 1998; revised manuscript received July 29, 1999, accepted October 5, 1999.
Reprint requests and correspondence: Dr. Erberto Carluccio, Via dellAllodola, 1, 06100 Ponte S. Giovanni, Perugia, Italy
| Abstract |
|---|
|
|
|---|
The aim of this study was to assess whether endogenous accumulation of adenosine, induced by low-dose dipyridamole infusion, protects from exercise-induced ischemia.
BACKGROUND
Adenosine is a recognized mediator of ischemic preconditioning in experimental settings.
METHODS
Ten patients (all men: mean age 63.4 ± 7.3 years) with chronic stable angina, angiographically assessed coronary artery disease (n = 7) or previous myocardial infarction (n = 3) and exercise-induced ischemia underwent on different days two exercise-stress echo tests after premedication with placebo or dipyridamole (15 mg in 30 min, stopped 5 min before testing) in a double-blind, placebo controlled, randomized crossover design.
RESULTS
In comparison with placebo, dipyridamole less frequently induced chest pain (20% vs. 100%, p = 0.001) and >0.1 mV ST segment depression (50% vs. 100%, p < 0.05). Wall motion abnormalities during exercise-stress test were less frequent (placebo = 100% vs. dipyridamole = 70%, p = ns) and significantly less severe (wall motion score index at peak stress: placebo = 1.55 ± 0.17 vs. dipyridamole = 1.27 ± 0.2, p < 0.01) following dipyridamole, which also determined an increase in exercise time up to echocardiographic positivity (placebo = 385.9 ± 51.4 vs. dipyridamole = 594.4 ± 156.9 s, p < 0.01).
CONCLUSIONS
Low-dose dipyridamole infusion increases exercise tolerance in chronic stable angina, possibly by endogenous adenosine accumulation acting on high affinity A1 myocardial receptors involved in preconditioning or positively modulating coronary flow through collaterals.
| ||||||||
| Methods |
|---|
|
|
|---|
0.15 mV) and obvious echocardiographic positivity (akinesia of
2 adjacent segments that were normally contracting in resting condition) were selected. Patient characteristics are reported in Table 1. All patients had CAD proved by angiography with visually assessed
75% luminal diameter narrowing in at least one major artery. Six patients had one vessel and four patients had two-vessel disease; none had three-vessel disease or significant left main narrowing. Patients were excluded if they had collateral vessels at the coronary angiography, MI within three months, unstable angina, chronic left or right bundle branch block, symptomatic congestive heart failure, complex ventricular arrhythmias, nonsinus rhythm, valvular heart disease or technically poor acoustic window. An additional inclusion criteria required all patients to be off calcium antagonists and beta-adrenergic blocking agents (stopped
3 days before testing) and have at least two reproducible (<15% variability in exercise time) positive exercise stress tests in the previous week (14). All patients gave written, informed consent for the study.
|
Exercise stress test. All patients performed two multistage bicycle ergometer tests, with an initial load of 25 W and subsequent increments of 25 W every 2 min (14). Electrocardiographic leads showing the most obvious ischemic changes during the previous exercise stress tests were continuously monitored during exercise. Twelve-lead electrocardiogram and systolic and diastolic pressures, obtained by a cuff sphygmomanometer, were recorded at baseline and each minute thereafter. Criteria for interrupting the test were moderately severe chest pain, 0.2 mV of ST segment depression 0.08 after the J point or maximal age-related heart rate and muscular exhaustion in the absence of ischemia (14). In this study, the heart rate-pressure product (heart rate x systolic blood pressure x 1/100) was used as an index of heart work and measured at the onset of ischemia (arbitrarily fixed at 0.10 mV of ST segment depression) or at peak exercise in negative tests. Two-dimensional echocardiographic monitoring was also performed during exercise stress test with a commercially available imaging system (ATL UltraMark 9, Bothell, Washington). At baseline, peak stress and recovery phase (3 min after stopping exercise with patient in the supine position) the wall motion score index (WMSI) was calculated by using a 16 segment model of the left ventricle, each segment scored from 1 = normal to 4 = dyskinetic according to the recommendations of the American Society of Echocardiography (15). To avoid the bias of the interobserver variability in stress echo reading (16,17), the same experienced observer reviewed and scored each and every stress study being blinded to the study condition (placebo vs. dipyridamole). The intra- and interobserver reproducibility of the stress echo reading in our lab is >90%. For each study, the following data were analyzed: 1) WMSI at rest, peak and recovery, and 2) exercise-time as the interval (seconds) between starting of exercise and appearance of obvious dyssynergy (change in wall motion score >0.20 from baseline).
Statistical analysis. Data are expressed as mean ± 1 standard deviation. Continuous variables before and immediately after infusion of placebo or dipyridamole were compared using a paired Student t test and Wilcoxon test for nonparametric data. Analysis of echocardiographic, ergometric and hemodynamic variables during exercise-stress echo after pretreatment with placebo or dipyridamole was performed using a two-way repeated measures analysis of variance. Post hoc comparisons between groups at various time points were performed with Student t test for unpaired data with Bonferroni correction (18). Categorical variables were compared with chi-square test and Fisher exact test when appropriate. We considered as significant a two-tailed p value <0.05.
| Results |
|---|
|
|
|---|
|
|
|
|
| Discussion |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Pathophysiological mechanisms. At least in theory, several mechanisms might concur to the beneficial effect of dipyridamole, including preconditioning, increase in coronary collateral blood flow and metabolic cardioprotection. The principal receptor target of low dose dipyridamole infusion is A1 receptor present on the myocardium and known to comediate preconditioning. The high affinity for adenosine can explain why it can be activated also by a dipyridamole dose known to increase plasma adenosine only modestly over resting level (12). With higher and faster dipyridamole infusion rates, as those used for stress testing purposes, plasma adenosine concentration increases more substantially, with values three- to four-fold higher than those present at rest (10). Such adenosine concentration is effective in stimulating low affinity A2 receptors present in coronary vessels. In particular, stimulation of A2a receptors produces marked dilation of coronary resistance vessels, determining arteriolar vasodilation and frequent occurrence of steal phenomena in the presence of significant CAD. This heterogeneity of populations of adenosine receptors may explain why a beneficial anti-ischemic effect of the drug is detectable at low doses and a clear detrimental pro-ischemic effect appears at high doses in unselected patients (6,7). Adenosine is known to increase coronary blood flow in patients with spontaneously visible collaterals, as a result of a reduction in the coronary collateral vascular resistance and peripheral vascular resistance of the recipient vessel (19,20). With high dipyridamole doses, angiographically assessed coronary collateral circulation represents a steal-prone coronary anatomy favoring the induction of ischemia during vasodilator stress testing (21). In our study, we excluded patients with collateral vessels at the coronary angiography, but this selection criterion does not rule out the anatomic presence and functional relevance of coronary collaterals. In fact, Cohen and Rentrop (22) showed that coronary collaterals could be demonstrated during coronary occlusion even if they were not evident during routine baseline coronary angiography. It is conceivable that low dose dipyridamole might increase coronary flow through collaterals (19,20). An additional possibility is a metabolic effect of adenosine. In fact, adenosine increases glucose uptake independent of its vasodilatory effect and stimulates glycolytic flux in anoxic myocardium (23,24). Which, if any, of the three pathways (preconditioning, coronary hemodynamic, cardiometabolic effect) is more relevant in determining the beneficial effects of dipyridamole cannot be established from this study.
Comparison with previous studies. Several studies have shown the protective effects of dipyridamole or exogenous adenosine in human models of myocardial ischemia, mostly with intracoronary injection during coronary angioplasty (2527). Bamiphylline is an A1 adenosine receptor blocker that abolishes preconditioning due to repeated episodes of ischemia, again suggesting that adenosine A1 receptor stimulation may be important to prevent ischemia (28). Laghi-Pasini et al. (12) convincingly showed that peripheral infusion of low-dose dipyridamole prevents dipyridamole-induced ischemia detected during pharmacological stress echo, clearly demonstrating the two faces of dipyridamole in the very same patient in the same setting: dipyridamole is anti-ischemic and protective at very low dose and pro-ischemic and detrimental at high doses. Our study moves along the same line, since we used a "therapeutic" dosage and infusion schedule similar to the one proposed by Laghi-Pasini et al. (12). However, our study is also basically different, since we evaluated the "therapeutic" effect of dipyridamole on a physiological model of exercise-induced ischemia.
The integrated anti-ischemic adenosine strategy. Adenosine has been named a "retaliatory metabolite" (29) acting to protect from ischemia the very same cells that produce it. A1 receptors are a first line, short-acting, functional line of defense of adenosine accumulation against acute ischemia. This response temporally overlaps with an A1A2 receptors mediated second line, long-acting, structural line of defense exerted by adenosine accumulation against chronic ischemia via coronary angiogenesis (30). Such a "cardiovascular" anti-ischemic system might be important not only in the cardiac, but possibly also at the cerebrovascular level (31). Further studies are needed to explore the far reaching implications of this hypothesis.
Study limitations. The main limitation of our study was the small number of patients studied. However, although only 10 subjects were studied, the power of the investigation was substantially increased by using each subject as his own control in a double-blind crossover design in which dipyridamole was compared with placebo. Another limitation was the lack of determination of plasma adenosine levels. The absence of electrocardiographic signs of ischemia after infusion with dipyridamole showed the absence of clear-cut ischemic effect of the drug, so that the plasma and interstitial adenosine levels reached in our patients by low dose, prolonged dipyridamole infusion were likely unable to induce a steal phenomena in the coronary circulation. On the other hand, Laghi-Pasini et al. (12), using a lower dose of intravenous dipyridamole (2 mg every 30 min for five consecutive times) have recently demonstrated a pulsed increase in plasma adenosine levels to determine a cardioprotective effect during a subsequent dipyridamole stress test. The design of our study does not allow clarification of the underlying mechanism of the anti-ischemic effect observed with low dose dipyridamole. A1 receptor-mediated preconditioning, increase in coronary blood flow (through collaterals?) and metabolic cardioprotection through potentiation of the glycolytic pathway are all reasonable but unproven candidates.
| References |
|---|
|
|
|---|
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
I. Shuralyova, P. Tajmir, P. J. Bilan, G. Sweeney, and I. R. Coe Inhibition of glucose uptake in murine cardiomyocyte cell line HL-1 by cardioprotective drugs dilazep and dipyridamole Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, February 1, 2004; 286(2): H627 - H632. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
A. Gamboa, A. C. Ertl, F. Costa, G. Farley, M. L. Manier, D. L. Hachey, A. Diedrich, and I. Biaggioni Blockade of Nucleoside Transport Is Required for Delivery of Intraarterial Adenosine Into the Interstitium: Relevance to Therapeutic Preconditioning in Humans Circulation, November 25, 2003; 108(21): 2631 - 2635. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
E. Picano and on behalf of the PISA study group Dipyridamole in chronic stable angina pectoris. A randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group study Eur. Heart J., October 1, 2001; 22(19): 1785 - 1793. [Abstract] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
K. Mubagwa and W. Flameng Adenosine, adenosine receptors and myocardial protection: An updated overview Cardiovasc Res, October 1, 2001; 52(1): 25 - 39. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HOME | SUBSCRIPTIONS | CURRENT ISSUE | PAST ISSUES | CARDIOSOURCE | SEARCH | HELP | FEEDBACK |