Methods: We investigated plasma and urinary endothelin-1 levels in eleven cirrhotic patients and ten healthy control subjects, to evaluate whether endothelin is involved in renal functional alterations of liver cirrhosis.
Results: No significant difference in plasma ET-1 levels was observed between the two groups (p > 0.05) but urinary ET-1 excretion was significantly higher in cirrhotics than in controls (p < 0.001). Creatinine clearance (mean 56 +/- 7.6 ml/min) showed an inverse correlation with plasma ET-1 levels (p < 0.05) in cirrhotics.
Conclusions: We believe this may be caused by enhanced local ET-1 activity linked to an up-regulation of its specific receptors and/or increased renal synthesis, resulting in augmented urinary excretion.