Plasma levels of endothelin-1 in patients with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate the behavior of circulating endothelin-1, a vasoconstrictor and mitogenic peptide, in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

Patients: We investigated plasma endothelin-1 levels in 29 patients with Crohn's disease, 13 with ulcerative colitis and 26 healthy subjects as controls.

Methods: Erythrocyte sedimentation and C-reactive protein were also measured in all patients. Plasma endothelin-1 was measured by specific radioimmunoassay and expressed as pg/ml.

Results: Both Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis patients showed a significant increase in plasma endothelin-1 concentration (22.3 +/- 8.2 pg/ml and 11.2 +/- 2.7 pg/ml, respectively) when compared to healthy subjects (6.2 +/- 1.5 pg/ml). Moreover, plasma endothelin-1 levels were significantly higher in Crohn's disease patients than those in ulcerative colitis patients (22.3 +/- 8.2 pg/ml vs 11.2 +/- 2.7 pg/ml; p < 0.001, respectively). A weak correlation (r = 0.645; p < 0.013) between erythrocyte sedimentation and endothelin-1 levels was observed in Crohn's disease patients. Age, sex, clinical activity of the disease, duration of history, anatomical localization of disease and therapy had no influence on plasma endothelin-1 levels.

Conclusion: Our results show that plasma endothelin-1 levels increase in chronic inflammatory bowel disease and mainly in Crohn's disease. This observation leads us on to believe that endothelin-1 has a important role in inflammatory bowel disease.