ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

Minerva Endocrinologica 2000 March;25(1):1-3

Copyright © 2000 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Plasmatic endothelin-1 levels in hyperthyroid patients before and after antithyroid therapy

Cesareo R. ¹, Tarabuso A. ¹, Di Benedetto M. ¹, Lacerna F. ², Reda G. ²

¹ Division of Internal Medicine, Ciriè Hospital, Ciriè (Turin); ² Division of Internal Medicine, S. Pertini Hospital, Rome

Background. The Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is a pow­er­ful vas­o­con­stric­tor pep­tide pro­duced by endo­the­lial ­cells in ­many vas­cu­lar dis­eas­es prob­ably as a ­response to ves­sel dam­age. In hyper­thyr­oi­dism as in oth­er endo­crin­o­log­i­cal dis­eas­es ele­vat­ed ET-1 plas­ma lev­els ­have ­been ­found.
Methods. The ­effect of anti­thy­roid ther­a­py on ET-1 plas­mat­ic lev­els was eval­u­at­ed by meas­ur­ing ET-1 plas­ma lev­els ­before and 2 and 6 ­months ­after treat­ment ­with methim­a­zole in 14 ­patients affect­ed by hyper­thyr­oi­dism.
Results. The hyper­thyr­oid ­patients had sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er ET-1 lev­els ­than the con­trols (18.85±5.7 vs 10.9±2.1 pg/ml), ­while ­after treat­ment no dif­fer­ence was ­found. The ET-1 plas­ma lev­els of hyper­thyr­oid ­patients cor­re­lat­ed close­ly ­with the ­raised thy­roid meta­bol­ic activ­ity inde­pen­dent­ly of its ­cause. It is pos­sible ­that the ­increased ET-1 lev­els in hyper­thyr­oid ­patients are the expres­sion of ­blood ves­sel dam­age ­caused by ­high thy­roid hor­mone lev­els.
Conclusions. Moreover the ­results of ­this ­study ­could sug­gest ­that, in ­future, ET-1 plas­mat­ic lev­els ­might be con­sid­ered as a func­tion­al thy­roid ­index in hyper­thyr­oid dis­eas­es.