Cisplatin-Induced Urinary Endothelin Excretion

To the Editor. — Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is a 21-residue vasoconstrictor-pressor peptide originally isolated and sequenced from porcine aortic endothelial cells.1We have recently demonstrated the production of ET-like immunoreactivity (LI) by renal tubular cells and the presence of ET-LI in human urine.2We have further shown that urinary ET-LI excretion levels remarkably increased in patients with renal disease, which originates, at least in part, from the affected renal tubules.3To elucidate whether urinary ET-LI is a marker for tubular injury, we measured urinary excretion levels of ET-LI in patients treated with cisplatin, a chemotherapeutic agent that often causes renal tubular damage. Study. — The present group consisted of six patients (three men and three women aged 50.0 ±6.4 years, mean± SEM) with cancers of various origins: adenocarcinoma of lung (two patients), ovarian papillary cystadenocarcinoma (two), lung metastasis of mandibular carcinoma (one), and mediastinal germ cell tumor (one).