RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: To study the correlation between the expression levels of phagocytic NADPH oxidase p22phox subunit and left ventricular mass index (LVMI) in patients with non-valvular chronic heart failure and explore the role of oxidative stress caused by NADPH oxidase p22phox subunit in left ventricular remodeling. METHODS: Semi-quantitative RT-PCR was used to examine the expression levels of phagocytic NADPH oxidase p22phox in 59 patients with non-valvular chronic heart failure and 20 control subjects. All the subjects underwent ultrasonic cardiography to record their IVST, LVPWT, LVEDd, LVEDs, and EF. Based on the calculated LVMI, the patients were divided into heart failure without LV hypertrophy (LVH) group and heart failure with LVH group. RESULTS: The patients with heart failure showed significantly higher expression of phagocytic NADPH oxidase p22phox than the control subjects (0.91∓0.37 vs 0.68∓0.33, P=0.039), and the patients with LVH had significantly higher p22phox expression than those without LVH (1.58∓0.20 vs 0.71∓0.24, P=0.026). LVMI showed a positive correlation with the expression of p22phox in these patients (r=0.508, P<0.05). CONCLUSION: NADPH oxidase p22phox expression level is positively correlated with LVMI and can be indicative of the level of left ventricular remodeling in patients with non-valvular chronic heart failure.