ENDOTHELIN: A WHOLE-BODY APPROACH

John Burnett's team has been on a winning streak in the past few months as the Mayo group of clinicians had two more endothelin studies accepted for publication: one appeared in the August issue of the American Journal of Physiology (P.G. Cavaro, et al., "Endothelin in experimental congestive heart failure in the anesthetized dog," 259:F312-17, August 1990), and one is to be published in the January 1991 issue of Circulation. The team also presented a third paper at the Central Society for Clinical Research conference in Chicago two weeks ago.

Using a dog model to mimic human heart failure, the team has shown that plasma endothelin levels are elevated more predictably than other hormones associated with this disease, such as renin and aldosterone. Furthermore, when healthy animals were given endothelin to equal the plasma concentration observed in the sick dogs, coronary, renal, and systemic vasoconstriction were...

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