Urinary kallikrein excretion in chronic liver disease and effect of indomethacin

Urinary kallikrein excretion was found as compared with 22 normal subjects (0.88 +/- 0.05 mumol/min/day) to be significantly reduced in 15 cirrhotics without ascites (0.42 +/- 0.04; p less than 0.01) and in 23 cirrhotics with ascites (0.15 +/- 0.02; p less than 0.01), and further, showed a significant difference between the two groups (p less than 0.01), but did not significantly change in 14 patients with chronic active hepatitis. Urinary kallikrein excretion in cirrhotics showed a positive correlation with serum albumin, indocyanine green disappearance rate, cholinesterase, and prothrombin, and an inverse correlation with bilirubin. After indomethacin administration to 13 cirrhotics with ascites, not only plasma renin activity and plasma aldosterone decreased significantly (p less than 0.01), but urinary kallikrein excretion also showed a small but statistically significant decrease (p less than 0.05). These results suggest that urinary kallikrein excretion decreases almost parallel to the severity of liver damage and is mediated via prostaglandins or the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, which may be involved in the reduction of renal blood flow in patients with liver cirrhosis.