[Compounds of the digoxin type in essential and experimental hypertension]

The prescription of cardiac glycosides is usually controlled by immunological measurement of their plasma concentration. The observation of false positive digoxin measurements in patients free of this drug and the hypothesis that endogenous digitalis-like compounds might participate in body sodium and water homeostasis have led us to investigate the presence in plasma of compounds interacting with digoxin-antibodies under various physiological and pathological conditions in man and rats. The apparent levels of digoxin-equivalents in plasma of healthy control subjects (n = 21) and patients with essential hypertension (n = 48) or end-stage renal failure (n = 13) were 24.7 +/- 3.2, 34.4 +/- 4.4 and 98.7 +/- 17.4 pg/ml, p less than 0.05 and p less than 0.01 respectively. Positive correlations were observed between systolic and diastolic blood pressure and the apparent immunoreactivity of either whole or deproteinized plasma, in particular when only male subjects were considered. No relationship was found with the renal Na+ excretion or the plasma renin activity and the apparent immunoreactivity of the plasma. Its levels were however correlated with its ability to inhibit ouabain binding to the erythrocyte Na+ pump and to its capacity to reduce the renal Na+, K+-ATPase activity. In rats with experimental hypertension, induced by chronic excess salt intake either alone or associated with reduced renal mass, the cross reactivity with antidigoxin antibodies was also enhanced when compared to control rats (71.6 +/- 10.2 pg/ml, n = 12 and 57.3 +/- 5.0 pg/ml, n = 33 respectively compared to 43.4 +/- 3.7 pg/ml, n = 36, p less than 0.05).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)