Antioxidant therapy with Salvia miltiorrhiza decreases plasma endothelin-1 and thromboxane B2 after cardiopulmonary bypass in patients with congenital heart disease

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Endothelin-1, published as a randomized controlled trial.

The relationship between endothelin-1 and the endothelium-derived prostacyclin (prostaglandin I2) and thromboxane A2 postoperatively is also investigated.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as young children, children and teenagers, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Endothelin-1 and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Endothelin-1, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Endothelin-1, giving a reference point.

Central venous blood samples were taken before operation (T(0)), 10 (T(1)) and 30 minutes (T(2)) after starting cardiopulmonary bypass, 10 (T(3)) and 30 minutes (T(4)) after aortic declamping, and 30 minutes (T(5)) and 24 hours (T(6)) after termination of cardiopulmonary bypass.

Plasma lipid peroxidation product malondialdehyde, myocardial specific creatine kinase-MB activity, thromboxane B2, and 6-keto-prostaglandin F(1 alpha) (stable metabolites of thromboxane A2 and prostaglandin I2) were measured.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Antioxidants, Biological Assay, Cardiac Surgical Procedures, Cardiopulmonary Bypass, Chemotherapy, Adjuvant, Confidence Intervals and Endothelin-1.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Endothelin-1.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2003 (The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Endothelin-1 compound page, all human trials.