Is coating of tubing required when endothelin-1 is infused intravenously?
Department of Nephrology and Hypertension University Medical Centre Utrecht The Netherlands Email: p.boer{at}azu.nl’ + u + ‘@’ + d + ”//–> Sir, To prevent irreproducible results caused by adsorption losses, inert proteins are often added to buffers used in radioimmunological determinations of peptides in order to coat the walls of the assay tubes. Such adhesion preventing substances are not always used in preparing solutions of biologically active peptides for i.v. infusion. Both saline without additions [1,2] and saline with albumin [3] or modified polypeptide gelatins such as Polygeline [4] or Haemaccel [5 7] have been used as the vehicle. To investigate whether or not such additions are required, we compared changes in plasma endothelin-1 (ET-1) levels, blood pressure and kidney function in five healthy men during infusion of ET-1 dissolved in saline with or without the modified gelatin Gelofusine. The study consisted of a 3 x 30 min baseline period, a 3 x 30 min vehicle period (G
