Urotensin II levels in patients with chronic kidney disease and kidney transplants.

Objective: Urotensin II is a potent vasoactive peptide that has been implicated in the pathophysiology of many diseases. There is no study reporting the role and level of this peptide in recipients of kidney transplant. So we aimed to study the plasma levels of urotensin II in this group of patients.

Methods: Plasma urotensin II levels were analyzed in 110 subjects, who were divided into three groups: group 1 (35 kidney transplant recipients), group 2 (36 patients with chronic kidney disease), and group 3 (39 healthy controls).

Results: Analysis of logarithmic transformation of urotensin II, i.e. log (urotensin II × 1000) levels, with a one-way analysis of variance yielded a P value of 0.001. Post-hoc analysis showed significantly higher log (urotensin II × 1000) levels in group 1 than groups 2 and 3 (P = 0.001 and 0.017, respectively). One of the important features of the subjects of this group was that they were taking immunosuppressive drugs because of renal transplantation.

Conclusions: High urotensin II levels in recipients of kidney transplants could be drug-related (immunosuppressive drugs) and may be of practical importance that may be used to improve the long-term outcome of the patients.