Intestinal injury can be reduced by intra-arterial postischemic perfusion with hypertonic saline.

Aim: To investigate the effect of local intestinal perfusion with hypertonic saline (HTS) on intestinal ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) in both ex vivo and in vivo rat models.

Methods: All experiments were performed on male Wistar rats anesthetized with pentobarbital sodium given intraperitoneally at a dose of 60 mg/kg. Ex vivo vascularly perfused rat intestine was subjected to 60-min ischemia and either 30-min reperfusion with isotonic buffer (controls), or 5 min with HTS of 365 or 415 mOsm/L osmolarity (HTS(365mOsm) or HTS(415mOsm), respectively) followed by 25-min reperfusion with isotonic buffer.