A Prospective Analysis of Methemoglobin as a Biomarker of Tissue Hypoxia During Acute Hemodilutional Anemia in Patients Undergoing Heart Surgery

Acute and chronic anemia continue to be associated with increased mortality in a number of clinical settings, including cardiac and non-cardiac surgery. 1-6 However, as recently stated by one of the pioneers of anemia research; Dr. R.B. Weiskopf: "We have no clinical measures that let us know of impending insufficient oxygenation as anemia progresses".7 Toward achieving this goal, we have developed experimental models to define the adaptive mechanisms which maintain oxygen homeostasis during acute anemia. Our research has identified that increased nitric oxide (NO) production by nitric oxide syntheses (NOSs) may be an important survival mechanism in acute anemia.3;8;9 Experimental data suggests that nNOS may promote survival by maintaining oxygen (O2) homeostasis during acute anemia.10 Resultant increases in nitric oxide (NO) contributes to adaptive cell signaling mechanisms and also increase oxidation of hemoglobin (Hb) to methemoglobin (MetHb).3 In addition, oxygen extraction results in increased levels of deoxyhemoglobin which has been proposed to act as a nitrite (NO2-) reductase to generate additional bioactive NO, thereby promoting vasodilation in hypoxic vascular beds.11-15 Thus, by more than one mechanism, increased MetHb may be indicative of hemoglobin desaturation, tissue hypoxia and activation of adaptive tissue responses to anemia. These responses may identify the threshold for local tissue hypoxia or "anemic stress". In attempt to determine if such mechanisms are active in humans we performed a retrospective study in patients undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) during heart surgery to determine if plasma MetHb increased as Hb decreased during CPB. We observed an inverse relationship between Hb and MetHb that was independent of red blood cell transfusion and exogenous nitrate use