The effect of naloxone on basophil histamine release from dialyzed patients.

Objective And Design: Naloxone had been shown to be effective in relieving pruritus of dialyzed patients. In order to determine the mechanism by which this is accomplished, we studied its effect on histamine release from white blood cells taken from this group.

Subjects: We compared 12 dialyzed patients (before and after dialysis) and 12 healthy controls.

Methods: The effect of naloxone (5 x 10(-3) M) on histamine release from the subjects' white blood cells was measured following anti-IgE + IL3 and TPA administration.

Results: The white blood cells of dialyzed patients had a high degree of histamine release compared to the healthy controls. Neither dialysis nor the patient's plasma affected this release. Naloxone markedly inhibited histamine release from white blood cells when stimulated with anti-IgE + IL3 or with TPA.

Conclusions: We concluded that naloxone may have a beneficial effect in treating dialyzed patients suffering from pruritus, probably by inhibiting histamine release.