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. 2022 Jun 27:3:100080.
doi: 10.1016/j.crtox.2022.100080. eCollection 2022.

Plasma level of antimony correlates with pulmonary arterial hypertension severity

Karim El-Kersh  1 , C Danielle Hopkins  2 , Xiaoyong Wu  3 , Shesh N Rai  3   4 , Lu Cai  5   6   7 , Jiapeng Huang  2   6   7   8   9
Affiliations

Plasma level of antimony correlates with pulmonary arterial hypertension severity

Karim El-Kersh et al. Curr Res Toxicol. .

Abstract

It is unknown if environmental antimony exposure influences pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and right ventricular function. We performed a pilot study to evaluate antimony levels in 20 PAH patients and 10 controls. Also, we explored the correlation of antimony level with PAH prognostic hemodynamic markers. Antimony blood and plasma levels were significantly higher in PAH patients when compared to controls [blood: PAH mean ± SD (95%CI) 1.3 ± 0.6 (1.0-1.5) ng/ml vs. control mean ± SD (95%) 0.7 ± 0.5 (0.4-1.0) ng/ml, p = 0.017] [plasma: PH mean ± SD (95%CI) 2.6 ± 1 (2.2-3.1) ng/ml vs. control mean ± SD (95%CI) 1.5 ± 0.8 (1.0-2.0) ng/ml, p = 0.004]. Also, antimony blood and plasma levels were significantly higher in idiopathic-PAH patients and non-idiopathic PAH when compared to controls. There was a trend for higher blood and plasma antimony levels in idiopathic PAH [blood1.6 ± 0.6 (1.1-2.1) ng/ml and plasma 3.1 ± 1.2 (2.2-4.1) ng/ml] when compared to non-idiopathic PAH [blood 1.1 ± 0.6(0.8-1.4) ng/ml and plasma 2.5 ± 0.9(2-2.9) ng/ml], but it did not reach statistical significance. There was a significant correlation between plasma antimony level and all the prognostic hemodynamic parameters of PAH including mRAP (r = 0.47, p = 0.036), CO (r = -0.50, p = 0.026), CI (r = -0.54, p = 0.014), PVR (r = 0.52, p = 0.019), and SvO2 (r = -0.54, p = 0.016).

Keywords: Antimony; Metal toxicity; Non-essential metals; PAH; RV dysfunction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Scatter plots of plasma antimony (Sb) and mRAP (A), PVR (B), CI (C), and SvO2% (D). *Svo2% was missing in one patient.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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