Study of serum angiotensin converting enzyme activity in end stage renal failure

Serum angiotensin converting enzyme [s.ACE] activity was measured in 30 patients with end stage renal failure [15 newly discovered and 15 on regular hemodialysis] and 15 matched controls. This study revealed significant decrease in s.ACE activity in undialysed uremic subjects as compared with control group and a significant increase in s.ACE in dialysed group in relation to undialysed group, while there was no significant difference in this respect between dialysed uremic subjects and control group. On the other hand there was no significant correlation betueen s.ACE activity and each of the : systolic diastolic, mean blood pressure, age of subjects, serum urea and creatinine in all studied groups, and no correlation was found between duration of dialysis and s.ACE activity in dialysed group. We conclude that chronic renal failure patients not on haemodialysis tend to be associated with lower levels of s.ACE activity and tend to be normalized by hemodialysis irrespective to the duration of dialysis

Study of plasma lipids, lipoproteins and lecithin cholesterol acyl transferase activity in nephrotic syndrome

Thirty subjects were included in this study and divided into 2 groups, control [n = 10] and nephrotic [n = 20] group, which further subdivided into 2 subgroups, severe [n = 8, serum albumin below 2 g/dl] and less severe [n = 12, serum albumin above 2 g/dl] nephrotic subgroup. The estimation of plasma level of high density lipoprotein-cholesterol [HDL-C], low density lipoprotein-cholesterol [LDL-C], triglycerides; total cholesterol [TC], free cholesterol [FC], esterified cholesterol [EC], Lecithin cholestero acyl transferase [LCAT] activity, Apolipoprotein-A[1] [APo-A[1]] and other routine investigation were done for all subjects. This study aimed at elucidating the possible changes in LCAT activity, associated with nephrotic syndrome and to find out its relation with plasma lipid and lipoprotein abnormalities in a trial to identify which type of patients are more liable to atherosclerosis. A significant decrease in plasma LCAT activity, APo-A, HDL-C and EC/TC ratio were detected in nephrotic as compared with control group and in severe as compared with less severe nephrotic subgroup. Also, plasma TC, FC, Triglycerides and LDL-C in nephrotic group were significantly higher than control group and FC/TC ratio was higher in severe as compared with less severe nephrotic subgroup. We conclude that low HDL-C and its APo-A[1] level along with. low LCAT activity may uncover the protection of nephrotic patients against enhanced atherogenesis and the low serum albumin level as well as the higher FC/TC ratio may predict the patients more prone to atherogenesis