Chronic inflammation was a major contributor to the pathogenesis of endothelium damage. Endothelial dysfunction (ED) refers to an artery’s failure to dilate in response to an endothelial stimulation. For a study, researchers evaluated the ED by evaluating the reactive hyperemia index (RHI) and flow-mediated dilation (FMD) in a sample of juvenile IBD patients and compared these parameters to a group of healthy controls (HC). Forty-one patients were enrolled in a row. The plethysmographic RHI technique and the measurement of the FMD of the brachial artery following blood flow obstruction were used to assess ED. The Mann-Whitney test was used to compare patient and control groups. A linear regression test was used to detect and correlate the primary inflammatory indicators in each IBD patient.
The study enrolled 26 (59%) patients with IBD and 18 (41%) patients with HC. On comparing FMD values upon diagnosis, patients with IBD had a substantially lower value (P = 0.04) than patients with HC. The difference became even more significant (P = 0.004) during the follow-up, confirming the first finding. FMD and fecal calprotectin had a strong indirect connection (r^2: 0.17; P = 0.04). When comparing RHI, no differences were discovered.
The study’s findings imply that inflammation may contribute to ED as measured by ultrasound FMD. RHI did not corroborate these findings; however, this might be owing to the lack of a defined pediatric cut-off.
Reference:journals.lww.com/jpgn/Fulltext/2019/09000/The_Role_of_Inflammation_in_the_Endothelial.15.aspx
