Table1 Clinical features and laboratory data of the patients studied

Fig.1 The plasma levels of endothelin-1 in the venous blood (ETv) of variceal patients with liver cirrhosis(lc+), idiopathic portal hypertension (IPH+) and primary biliary cirrhosis(pbc+) along with those of non variceal patients with PBC (PBC-) and healthy subjects. Fig.2 The plasma levels of endothelin-1 in the portal blood (ETp) of variceal patients with liver cirrhosis(lc+), idiopathic portal hypertension (IPH+) and primary biliary cirrhosis(pbc+) along with those of non variceal patients with PBC(PBC-). ;p<0.01

Fig.3 a, b, c&d Correlation between plasma levels of endothelin-1 in venous blood (ETv) (a&b) or those in portal blood (ETp) (c&d) and serum total bilirubin (TB) levels (a&c) or values of indocyanine green dye retention rate at 15 min (ICG R15) (b&d) in variceal patients with liver cirrhosis. N.S.; not significant

Fig.4 a, b, c&d Correlation between plasma levels of endothelin-1 in venous blood (ETv) (a&b) or those in portal blood (ETp) (c&d) and serum total bilirubin(tb) levels (a&c) or values of indocyanine green dye retention rate at 15 min(icg R15) (b&d) in variceal patients with primary biliary cirrhosis. N.S.; not significant Fig.5 Change in endothelin-1 levels in the portal blood (ETp) before and after endoscopic injection sclerotherapy(eis) in variceal patients with liver cirrhosis(lc+; solid line \, n=6) and primary biliary cirrhosis(pbc+; dotted line c c, n=3) classified into patients with increased (a) and decreased (b) portal vein pressure(pvp) after EIS.

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The clinical significance of plasma endothelin-1 in venous and portal blood of patients with portal hypertension Toshihiko KOJIMA, Shunji KAISE, Katsutoshi OBARA, Hiromasa OHIRA, Masahito KURODA, Tohru TAKAGI, Reiji KASUKAWA To investigate the significance of endothelin-1(et) in the pathophysiology of portal hypertension, we measured the plasma levels of ET in venous and portal blood of 37 patients with portal hypertension by means of enzyme immunoassay. The ET levels in venous blood (ETv) in patients with liver cirrhosis (LC,n=16), idiopathic portal hypertension(iph,n=13) and primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC,n=8) were higher than those in healthy subjects. The ET levels in portal blood (ETp) in patients with IPH were significantly lower than those in patients with LC and PBC. No correlation between the levels of ETv or ETp and values of portal vein pressure (PVP) was noted in any kinds of diseases. ETp values correlated with total bilirubin values in LC patients, whereas ETv and ETp values correlated with indocyanine green dye retention rate at 15 minutes values in PBC patients. After endoscopic injection sclerotherapy (EIS) of esophagogastric varices, both ETp levels and PVP values were decreased in 4 of 6 LC patients, whereas both ETp levels and PVP values were increased in 2 of 3 PBC patients. These results suggest that ETp might play some roles in the pathophysiology of portal hypertension. Department of Internal Medicine II, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine(Fukushima)