Defibrotide Cuts Heart Damage in Rabbit Model of Blocked-Artery Injury

Thiemermann and colleagues, writing in the British Journal of Pharmacology in 1989, studied defibrotide, a single-stranded polydeoxyribonucleotide drug made from cattle lung tissue, in rabbits whose heart arteries were temporarily blocked and then reopened. This is an animal pharmacology study, not a human trial, and it examines a specific injected drug rather than skin or wound applications.

Researchers occluded a coronary artery in rabbits for 60 minutes, then let blood flow return for 3 hours, some animals receiving defibrotide (an intravenous bolus followed by a continuous infusion) with or without the drug indomethacin, which blocks certain prostaglandin pathways. Defibrotide lessened the electrical heart changes that normally signal ischaemia (reduced blood supply) and reperfusion injury, improved blood flow in normal and ischaemic (but not already-dead) heart tissue, and cut the size of the damaged heart area by 51% compared to untreated animals. When indomethacin was added, this protective effect disappeared, suggesting it depends partly on the body's own prostaglandin production.

The study cannot show whether this effect occurs in humans, in other organs, or with other polydeoxyribonucleotide preparations, and it does not address skin, wound healing or cosmetic use. The exact mechanism remains only partly explained.