CECAL SLURRY AS AN ALTERNATIVE MODEL TO CECAL LIGATION AND PUNCTURE FOR THE STUDY OF SEPSIS-INDUCED CARDIOVASCULAR DYSFUNCTION.

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition widely studied by animal models. Cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) is still regarded as the gold standard model for sepsis. However, CLP has limitations due to its invasiveness and variability. Cecal slurry (CS) model is a nonsurgical and thus less invasive alternative. However, the lack of standardization of the CS model in the literature limits its practical application. Additionally, it is not well studied whether CS model reproduces septic cardiovascular dysfunction in rats, which is a crucial issue in septic patients. Thus, this study aimed to standardize the CS model in Wistar rats and evaluate sepsis-induced cardiovascular dysfunction compared to CLP. Our results showed that CS model induced important features of sepsis cardiovascular dysfunction 24 h after its onset, such as hypotension, tachycardia, and decreased contractile response to vasoconstrictors both in vivo and ex vivo as well changes in renal blood flow. Increases in blood lactate, AST, ALT, creatinine, and urea indicated organ dysfunction. CS model also induced increased production of nitric oxide metabolites and bacterial spread to tissues. CS model causes less animal suffering, it is a nonsurgical model, and, more importantly, it replicates the cardiovascular dysfunction induced by sepsis with better homogeneity than CLP. Therefore, CS model serves as an alternative and possibly as a better model for sepsis research.