Endothelin-1 and cerebral blood flow in a porcine model

The purpose of the study was to investigate whether provoked changes of cerebral perfusion pressure and arterial carbon dioxide tension are able to influence the cerebral metabolism of endothelin-1 (ET-1) in a porcine model. Brain tissue oxygen tension, regional cerebral blood flow and mean arterial blood pressure were monitored in 10 healthy pigs during induced hyperventilation (HV), hypertension (HrT) and hypotension (HoT). ET-1 was determined in the arterial and cerebrovenous blood. Microdialysis samples (lactate, glucose and pyruvate) were taken from brain and subcutaneous tissue. A significant decrease (p < 0.05) of the arterial ET-1 (1.46 ± 0.33 fmol/mL) compared to the baseline (2.18 ± 0.36 fmol/mL) was observed after the HoT-period. We detected a positive correlation between cerebrovenous ET-1 and extracellular cerebral glucose (0.68; p < 0.05) after the baseline as well as a negative correlation of −0.81 (p < 0.005) between the cerebrovenous ET-1 level and the extracellular cerebral lactate after the HoT-period. These data imply that with increasingly pathological changes of the cerebral metabolism endothelin becomes progressively more important in the regulation of cerebral vascular tone.