Influence of short-term hypothermia upon the normal or ischaemic dog kidney.

Dog kidneys were subjected to 1 hr of normothermic ischaemia, maintained for 3 hr in hypothermia with autologous heparinised blood, or underwent a combination of these two treatments and were examined either immediately after the trauma or at different periods up to 1 week after autotransplantation. Clearance tests, tubular amino acid and sugar transport, cortical Na⁺K⁺-ATPase levels, acid phosphatase liberated into the renal circulation, and morphology were investigated. The results obtained (i) confirmed the severe, but slowly and progressively reversible lesion after ischaemia; (ii) revealed the functional impairment with almost normal morphology after hypothermia; and (iii) indicated the immediate and irreparable deterioration of renal function after ischaemic kidneys were subjected to short-term hypothermic treatment of this type.