[Metilin Improves Сardiac Function in Rabbits With Chronic Heart Failure].

Aim: To study effects of intravenous infusion of a cardioprotective drug metilin, developed at the "National Medical Research Center of Cardiology" on indices of cardiac function in rabbits in vivo after prolonged administration of doxorubicin.

Materials And Methods: Animals of the experimental group were intravenously injected with doxorubicin (2 mg / kg once a week) for 8 weeks, animals of the control group received the same volume of saline. Myocardial damage was characterized by an increase in concentration of malondialdehyde (MDA), troponin (TnI) and MB-fraction of creatine kinase (CK-MB) in venous blood and by disturbances in the left ventricle (LV) structure at morphological examination. Metilin effects on cardiac function were assessed by echocardiography and LV catheterization by the Millar catheter tip pressure transducer.

Results: Doxorubicin administration led to a decrease of the body mass of animals, an increase of the plasma concentration of cardiac markers CK-MB and TnI, lipid peroxidation (LPO) product MDA in venous blood, and pronounced disturbances in the structure of LV fibers and microvessels. At the same time, a significant decrease of myocardial contractility indices was observed. Manifestations of this decrease were increase of the end-diastolic and end-systolic dimensions (EDD and ESD, respectively), and decreases in the shortening fraction and ejection fraction (SF and EF, respectively) compared to baseline values. These changes indicated development of chronic heart failure (CHF) in animals of the experimental group. Against this background, intravenous infusion of metilin significantly increased SF and EF, but did not affect the heart rate. Beneficial effects of metilin on the indices of cardiac contractility and relaxation were maintained after the infusion was stopped. Noteworthy, metilin exerted greater influence on cardiac function of rabbits with CHF compared to control animals that did not receive doxorubicin.

Conclusion: The obtained results indicate the potential of metilin to reduce LV dysfunction during chemotherapy with doxorubicin.