Conditioning techniques and ischemic reperfusion injury in relation to on-pump cardiac surgery.

Objectives: The objective was to investigate the potential protective effects of two conditioning methods, on myocardial ischemic and reperfusion injury in relation to cardiac surgery.

Design: Totally 68 patients were randomly assigned to either a control group (n = 23), a remote ischemic preconditioning (RIPC) group (n = 23) or a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analogue group (n = 22). The RIPC protocol consisted of three cycles of upper limb ischemia.