Pharmacology for preconditioning in clinical studies

The main purpose of this study was to review and introduce the physical and pharmacological stimuli and their potential effects with respect to the pharmacological impacts of preconditioning (PC) in cardiovascular and ischemia clinical studies. In this review, data were retrieved from the Information Sciences Institute, PubMed, Scientific Information Database, and Scopus databases, with a further emphasis on the articles published in the last 10 years. Key words used for this purpose included ischemia, reperfusion, heart, infarction, and preconditioning. The eligible and relevant clinical trials on pharmacological stimuli were included in this review. The relevant articles, all have been published from 1983 - 2016. Today, many studies are being performed to implement and apply PC in clinical human cases, in order to minimize the ischemia reperfusion (IR)-induced complication in certain conditions such as myocardial infarction and heart surgery. The Drugs used in the studies are mostly common agents such as nitroglycerin, oxygen, adenosine, etc., and are among commonly used drugs in cardiovascular diseases, which often increase tissue resistance, and conveniently used in the patient's bedside and are accepted by the patients. Using a physical or pharmacological stimulus before prolonged ischemia increases tissue resistance by activating intracellular mechanisms, thereby reducing the IR-induced, cardiac damage and erythema.