Defibrotide in extracorporeal circulation on healthy rabbits.

Defibrotide, a partially depolymerized DNA fraction obtained from mammalian lung, was found to have significant antithrombotic and fibrinolytic activities. On the basis of this evidence defibrotide could be of clinical value during hemoperfusive treatment. The present study was designed to evaluate the biological tolerance of this technique in a model of extracorporeal circulation, using an original Silastic apparatus, with defibrotide (0.83 mg/kg-1/min-1 after a 50 mg/kg-1 bolus injection) and heparin (0.66 IU/kg-1/min-1 after a 400 IU/kg-1 bolus injection) in ten rabbits (Group 1) and heparin only in ten others (Group 2, control group). In this study defibrotide produced a significantly lower pressure inside the circuit compared to the control group and gave a protective effect against those pathological changes which appeared during extracorporeal circulation and that may be considered omens of a state of shock. However the use of defibrotide in addition to heparin seemed to have a poor effect on platelet and leukocyte count alterations during application of this technique.