PEDIATRIC NEPHROLOGY, cilt.15, ss.266-270, 2000 (SCI-Expanded)
Children with Bartter syndrome have lower than normal vascular reactivity with normotension in spite of biochemical and hormonal abnormalities which are typical of hypertension. Nitric oxide (NO) is a potent endogenous vasodilator, and plays an important role in the control of vascular tone. Adrenomedullin (AM) is a novel hypotensive peptide originally isolated from human pheochromocytoma. The possible role of NO and PLM in maintaining this reduced vascular reactivity was examined by studying plasma and urinary nitrite, a stable metabolite of NO, and AM levels in ten children with Bartter syndrome, ten healthy controls, and five children with hypokalemia of causes other than Bartter syndrome (pseudo-Bartter). Urinary excretion of nitrite (mu mol/mg urinary creatinine) was 8.9.+/-1.2 in children with Bartter syndrome, 4.7.+/-0.9 in healthy controls, and 2.9.+/-0.8 in pseudo-Bartter (P<0.05). Plasma nitrite levels (