Plasma Serotonin Levels Can Correlate With Degree Of Liver Insufficiency
November 6th, 2007 | by admin |
Liver cirrhosis is a worldwide disease with an incidence of 5 to 10% and represents a major health problem everywhere. Prognosis depends on the degree of liver damage and etiology of cirrhosis. Treatment is complex and often very expensive. Due to this, the attempts of researchers are focused on finding the most optimal therapeutic modalities, which depend mostly on the stage of cirrhosis.
A research article to be published on November 21 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses non-invasive assessment of the stages of cirrhosis according to concentration of plasma serotonin. The research team included in their study 30 patients with liver cirrhosis and 30 healthy controls, in whom plasma serotonin levels were determined.
The serotonergic system plays a critical role in a wide variety of physiological and behavioral processes. In the circulation, serotonin synthesized by the intestinal cells is actively incorporated and stored into platelets. Altered concentrations of circulating serotonin have been implicated in several pathologic conditions, including increased blood pressure, increased pulmonary pressure, liver cirrhosis and psychiatric disorders.
Plasma serotonin levels are significantly higher in patients with cirrhosis than in the controls and represent the degree of liver insufficiency.
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Reference: Doroe M ?ulafi?, Dusko S Mirkoviae, Miodrag D Vukeeviae, Jelena S Rudiae. Plasma and platelet serotonin levels in patients with liver cirrhosis. World J Gastroenterol 2007; 13(43)
Correspondence to: Assistant Professor, Institute of Digestive Diseases, Clinical Center of Serbia, Koste Todorovica 6 street, Belgrade 11000, Serbia.
About World Journal of Gastroenterology:
World Journal of Gastroenterology (World J Gastroenterol, WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has an established reputation for publishing fi rst class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H pylori infection, providing a forum for both clinicians and scientists, and has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2003-2000 IF: 3.318, 2.532, 1.445 and 0.993. WJG is a weekly journal published by The WJG Press. The publication date is 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th every month. WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No.30424812, which was founded with a name of China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed as WJG on January 25, 1998.
About The WJG Press
The WJG Press mainly publishes World Journal of Gastroenterology.
Source: You-De Chang
World Journal of Gastroenterology
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