Moderate anemia is associated with increased mortality and morbidity, including acute kidney injury (AKI), in surgical patients.
Our data provided clear evidence of renal tissue hypoxia, which was in part due to a lack of increase in renal blood flow.
Anemia has been associated with an increased risk of acute kidney injury (AKI) (17, 18, 20, 27, 28), stroke (17, 20, 27), myocardial events (6, 11, 20, 28, 47), and mortality (1, 2, 10, 11, 17, 20, 27, 28, 36, 45, 47) in patients undergoing surgery.
By contrast, no or limited increases in renal blood flow are observed during acute hemodilution (15, 42), leading to earlier and more severe renal tissue hypoxia (5, 38), and an increase in the magnitude of hypoxia signaling responses, including stabilization of the transcription factor hypoxia- inducible factor- (HIF-) (42, 43).
The absent or relatively small increase in renal blood flow likely contributed to the occurrence of renal tissue hypoxia in both models.
The renal blood flow response to anemia is proportionally much smaller than the increase observed in cerebral blood flow (50–100%). This relative difference in organ blood flow likely explains why the kidney becomes profoundly hypoxic, whereas brain oxygenation is largely preserved during anemia (12, 32, 42).
However, as reviewed above, several experimental tal studies and our new data have demonstrated that both acute and subacute anemia are associated with renal tissue hypoxia (5, 38, 41, 43).
Surprisingly, even moderate levels of preoperative anemia [hemoglobin (Hb) concentrations between 80 and 100 g/l] have been associated with an increased risk of renal injury {odds ratio (OR): 1.38 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.18 –1.62], P 0.05} (28).
In perioperative medicine, there is a clear association between preoperative anemia and AKI in noncardiac and cardiac surgery (17, 18, 20, 28).
The preferential adaptive increase in cerebral blood flow has also been demonstrated in other models of anemia, including acute hemodilution and chronic sickle cell anemia (3, 41).
By day 1 following injection, plasma Hb concentrations in the anemia group were reduced to 0.5 0.3 g/l, which was not significantly different from the control value of 0.5 0.3 g/l (n 6, unadjusted P 0.93; Fig. 3A).
SpO2 values increased in anemic mice (n 6) from a baseline value of 97.1 0.6% to a day 3 value of 98.1 0.2 and a day 4 value of 97.8 0.4% (n 6, unadjusted P 0.02, adjusted P 0.05; Fig. 4). Day 4 SpO2 values were higher than a control value of 97.0 0.8% (n 6; unadjusted P 0.01, adjusted P 0.05).
Internal carotid artery flow increased from a baseline value of 0.3 0.1 ml/min to 0.6 0.1 ml/min during anemia (unadjusted P 0.001, adjusted P 0.001; Fig. 5).
During anemia, kidney PtO2 was reduced to a value of 13.1 4.3 mmHg (n 10) compared with a control value of 20.8 3.7 mmHg (n 14; P 0.001; Fig. 6).
Brain PtO2 of anemic mice was 22.7 5.2 mmHg (n 13), which was not significantly different from a control value of 23.4 9.8 mmHg (n 14, P 0.59).
D). “Right kidney liver region” HIF/luciferase radiance increased from a baseline value of 5.30 107 1.23 107 p/s to a day 4 value of 6.72 107 1.63 107 p/s (unadjusted P 0.01, adjusted P 0.04; Fig. 7E).
“Gut region” HIF/luciferase radiance at the day 4 time point was 4.38 108 4.00 108 p/s, which was higher than a control value of 2.36 108 0.93 108 p/s (unadjusted P 0.001, adjusted P 0.001; Fig. 8E).
In addition, change in day 4 gut region HIF/luciferase radiance values from baseline in anemic mice was 1.68 108 3.48 108 p/s, which was higher than a control value of 1.08 108 1.28 108 p/s (P 0.02).
During anemia (n 6), kidney EPO mRNA transcription increased 20-fold relative to control mice (n 5, P 0.001; Fig. 9A).
Heart EPO mRNA transcription was not significantly different in anemic mice relative to control mice (P 0.35).
Despite the preserved tissue PO2 level during subacute anemia, we demonstrated an increase in HIF-dependent mRNA levels of EPO, HO-1, and GAPDH. This finding is consistent with other experimental studies that have also demonstrated increases in HIF-dependent mRNA expression in the absence of a clear reduction in brain PtO2 (12, 23).
Brain HO-1 mRNA levels increased by 38% in anemic mice relative to control mice (P 0.01), and GAPDH mRNA levels increased by 18% in anemic mice relative to control mice (P 0.002; Fig. 9B).
Our experimental data provided clear evidence that moderate subacute anemia resulted in a profound level of renal tissue hypoxia, as characterized by a reduction in kidney PtO2, an increase in regional HIF/luciferase radiance in vivo, and a substantial increase in EPO mRNA level at a Hb concentration consistent with moderate anemia (90 g/l).
We observed a mild degree of plasma hypoxia could lead to organ injury.
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If you find BEL Commons useful in your work, please consider citing: Hoyt, C. T., Domingo-Fernández, D., & Hofmann-Apitius, M. (2018). BEL Commons: an environment for exploration and analysis of networks encoded in Biological Expression Language. Database, 2018(3), 1–11.