Oxidative Stress And Oxidative Damage In Patients With Acute Viral Myocarditis

Objective To study the states of oxidative stress in patients with acute viral myocarditis, and to investigate pathological chain reactions of a series of free radicals and potential oxidative and lipoperoxidative damages in their bodies. Methods 57 patients with acute viral myocarditis (AVM) and 60 healthy adults (HA) were enrolled in a case-control study, in which concentrations of nitric oxide (NO) in plasma, lipoperoxides (LPO) in plasma and LPO in erythrocytes (RBC), glutathione (GSH) in whole blood as well as activities of glutathione-s-transferase (GST) in plasma, glutathione peroxidase (GPX) and catalase (CAT) in RBC were determined with spectrophotometric assays. Results Compared with the average values of the above biochemical parameters in the HA group, the average values of NO in plasma, and LPO in plasma and in RBC in the AVM group were significantly increased (.P<0.001), while the average values of GSH, GST, CATand GPX in the AVM group were significantly decreased (P<0.001). With the decline of the GST, an linear increase of NO and LPO in plasma and LPO in RBC (/*=().034~0.010) and an linear decrease of activities about GSH in whole blood as well as CAT and GPT in RBC (P < 0.01~0.001) were found in the AVM group. The relative risk ratio for the AVM group to suffer from the potential oxidative damage was ranging from 1.2 to 18.1 times as much as the HA group (95%CI). If analyzed independently, the correct rate of discrimination to the AVM group ranged from 59.6% to 68.4% and the correct rate of discrimination to the HA group ranged from 65.0% to 81.7%. If stepwise discriminant analysis applied, the correct rate of discrimination was 80.7 % in the AVM group and 100 % in the HA group. The reliability analysis result indicated that the reliability coefficient alpha and the standardized item alpha were 0.6641 and 0.9062, respectively. ConclusionThe findings in this study demonstrated that the oxidative stress in patients with acute viral myocarditis was severely aggravated, which suggested that the proper supplement of the antioxidants, especially the antioxidative nutrients, might be helpful to reduce the oxidative stress and damage so as to lower the susceptibility or alleviate the development of acute viral myocarditis.