Plasma endothelin and nitric oxide levels in patients with acute pancreatitis

摘要

Objective: To explore the changes of plasma endothelin(ET) and nitric oxide (NO) levels in patients with a-cute pancreatitis.Methods: The level of plasma ET was measured by ra-dioactive-immunoassay, and NO by spectrophotometry.Results: The levels of ET, NO and the ET/NO ratioin patients with severe acute pancreatitis(SAP) within24 hours in hospital were all significantly higher thanthose in other groups of patients [(176±8)pg/ml,(97±11) μmol/L, and 1.83±0.12, P0.01]. Com-pared to healthy controls(N), the levels of ET and NOin patients without pancreatitis acute abdomen (NAP)and patients with mild acute pancreatitis (MAP) in-creased significantly (P0.01). After appropriate treat-ment, the levels of ET and NO in the MAP groupwere lower (P0.01). Compared with those beforetreatment, the levels of ET and NO in the SAP groupon the 3rd and 7th day in hospital dropped signifi-cantly(P0.01).The ET/NO ratio on the 7th daywas also lower than that on admission (P0.01).Conclusions: The malfunction of endothelial cells andthe increased ET/NO ratio may be related to the mecha-nism of pancreatic microcirculatory disturbance in pa-tients with SAP; early dynamic determination of theseparameters may help predict the prognosis of SAP.