Effects of Anesthesia and Surgery on Plasma Endothelin Levels

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Abstract
To investigate the clinical significance of endothelin (ET), a potent and long-acting vasoconstrictor peptide in anesthesia and surgery, we measured plasma ET-like immunoreactivity (ET-LI) levels by using radioimmunoassay in patients undergoing various kinds of surgery under general anesthesia. No significant changes in plasma ET-LI levels were observed in patients undergoing relatively minor surgery under general anesthesia with nitrous oxide and halothane (n=6), enflurane (n=6), or isoflurane (n=5). Although plasma ET-LI levels after surgery in patients undergoing total knee replacement (12.4 +/- 0.9 [mean +/- SEM] pg/mL, n=7), hysterectomy (11.4 +/- 0.6 pg/mL, n=8) or cholecystectomy (14.8 +/- 1.2 pg/mL, n=9) were no different from those before surgery, plasma ET-LI levels after surgery in patients undergoing gastrectomy (20.4 +/- 1.9 pg/mL, n=15), esophagectomy (24.7 +/- 2.5 pg/mL, n=12), hepatectomy (27.5 +/- 3.4 pg/mL, n=12), or heart surgery (43.1 +/- 4.1 pg/mL, n=18) were higher than those before surgery (P (Anesth Analg 1995;80:449-53)