Relationship between soluble thrombomodulin in patients with intermittent claudication and critical ischemia.
BACKGROUND
Thrombomodulin (TM) has been described as a marker of endothelial injury in atherosclerosis. The role of TM as a predictor of PAD severity is to be proven. The goal of the present study is to compare the level of plasmatic (TMp) in patients with intermittent claudication with patients with critical ischemia in the lower limbs.


METHODS
TMp was measured using ELISA in the plasma of 41 patients with intermittent claudication degree 1 and in 40 patients presenting critical ischemia in the lower limbs degrees 2 and 3, according to TASC. The hypotheses of normality and homogeneity of the variance had been proven via Shapiro-Wilk and Levene tests, respectively. The comparison of the TMp between the groups was done using the t-Student test.


RESULTS
No statistically significant difference was observed. The average levels of TMp for intermittent claudication were 5.2 ng/ml (0.78-13.61 ng/ml) and TMp for critical ischemia in the lower limbs were 6.34 (0.82-18.22 ng/ml) where p=0.265.


CONCLUSIONS
TMp does not seem to be an appropriate marker for PAD severity.
Nasser
M
M
Division of Vascular Surgery, Hospital das Clinicas, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. michelnasser@aol.com.br
Wolosker
N
N
Uint
L
L
Rosoky
R A
RA
Lobato
M
M
Wajngarten
M
M
Puech-Leao
P
P
D000368:Aged; D001157:Arterial Occlusive Diseases / Q000473:pathology; D050197:Atherosclerosis; D004730:Endothelium, Vascular / Q000473:pathology*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation; D007383:Intermittent Claudication / Q000473:pathology*; D007511:Ischemia / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018180:Thrombomodulin / Q000097:blood*; D013997:Time Factors
D018180:Thrombomodulin