OBJECTIVE: Reactive oxygen species (ROS), origined from the xanthine oxidase activity, have great importance in the ischemia-reperfusion syndrome. Our objective was study the effect of allopurinol (a xanthine oxidase inhibitor) on the histologic alterations in ischemic livers in rats. METHODS: Sixty Wistar rats were utilized and dividided into three groups: Group 1 (n=20): pretreated with allopurinol and submitted to laparatomy and exposition of the hepatic pedicle for 45 minutes; Group 2 (n=20): pretreated with allopurinol and submitted to hepatic ischemia for 45 minutes; and Group 3 (n=20): submitted to hepatic ischemia for 45 minutes. To every 24 hours, during four days, five rats of every group were submitted to partial hepatectomy to study the liver histology. RESULTS: In the analysis of 24h, vascular congestion and hepatic necrosis significantly increase in the ischemic groups (2 and 3) when compared with group 1 (p<0,05). In the 48h, the results repeated in relation to necrosis. We didn’t observe significative difference in the histologic alterations between the groups in the 72 and 96h after the proceedings. Furthermore, in the 24h, we observed a significative decrease of hepatic necrosis on the pretreated ischemic rats when compared with no-treated animals. CONCLUSIONS: The transitory normotermic hepatic ischemia causes significative histopathologic alterations in the livers of rats. In this study, allopurinol exerted a beneficial effect on the hepatic necrosis, emphatyzing the importance of the xanthine oxidase enzyme in the damage induced by hepatic ischemia-reperfusion.
Hepatic ischemia-reperfusion; Histology; Allopurinol; Reactive oxygen species