Abstract
Background: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) may be associated with subendocardial ischaemia. We investigated whether ischaemia-modified albumin (IMA), an established marker of ischaemia, is elevated in stable patients with PH.
Methods: We studied 32 patients with PH and an equal number of age-matched normal volunteers. We assessed serum IMA levels with the albumin cobalt-binding test.
Results: Patients’ mean ± SD (range) pulmonary arterial pressure was 56 ± 12 (33–73) mmHg and their exercise capacity was 394 ± 145 (121–688) m in the 6-min walk test. IMA was 92 ± 14 (69–115) U ml−1 in the patient group and 93 ± 9.4 (76–122) U ml−1 in the control group with no significant difference between the two (p = 0.85), although almost one-third of the patients had detectable troponin-I.
Conclusions: We conclude that IMA, a marker of ischaemia, does not differ in patients with advanced clinically stable PH compared with normal subjects.
Acknowledgements
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.