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. 1990 Jan;99(1):9–10. doi: 10.1111/j.1476-5381.1990.tb14643.x

Impairment of pulmonary endothelium-dependent relaxation in patients with Eisenmenger's syndrome.

A T Dinh Xuan 1, T W Higenbottam 1, C Clelland 1, J Pepke-Zaba 1, G Cremona 1, J Wallwork 1
PMCID: PMC1917494  PMID: 2331577

Abstract

A comparison has been made between the endothelium-dependent relaxation of pulmonary arteries (PA) obtained at heart-lung transplantation from 4 patients with Eisenmenger's syndrome and secondary pulmonary hypertension, and PA obtained at lobectomy from 4 patients with lung carcinoma, the controls. All vascular rings were studied immediately after lung excision. PA rings from control patients dose-dependently relaxed to cumulative doses of acetylcholine (ACh, 10(-10) to 10(-5) M), achieving a maximal relaxation of 80 +/- 5% (mean +/- s.e. mean) from precontraction with phenylephrine. By contrast, PA rings from Eisenmenger's syndrome patients achieved a maximal relaxation of only 34 +/- 12% (P less than 0.05, unpaired t test), with even paradoxical contraction at high doses of ACh (10(-6) to 10(-5) M). Sodium nitroprusside (10(-4) M) relaxed all PA rings, with and without endothelium (carefully removed before study), obtained from both control and Eisenmenger's syndrome patients. These results provide the first evidence that endothelium-dependent relaxation of PA mediated by endothelium-derived relaxing factors is impaired in Eisenmenger's syndrome patients with secondary pulmonary hypertension.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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