Reference interval establishment and correlation research of urine thromboxane metabolites: Unveiling new...

Thromboxane metabolites could indirectly reflect platelet activation, among which 11-dehydro-thromboxane B₂ (11dhTxB₂) and 11-dehydro-2, 3-dinor thromboxane B₂ (11dh23dinorTxB₂) are two stable metabolites that are abundant in urine, and both are closely related to disease progression and drug use. However, most clinical application studies have focused on the single indicator of 11dhTxB₂. We propose an LC-MS/MS method suitable for routine clinical screening with simultaneous determination of both metabolites and conduct preliminary studies in different populations.

The thromboxane metabolites were extracted by liquid-liquid extraction and determined by LC-MS/MS. Reference intervals (RI) were established in 333 healthy adults and validated in 25 patients with coronary atherosclerosis (CA). This LC-MS/MS method was over a wide quantitative range (0.1-10 μmol/L), the imprecision and accuracy were 5.2 %-11 % and 89.3 %-106.5 %, and was suitable for clinical routine quantitative screening. The 95th percentile RI of unire 11dhTxB₂ was 1220 (95 % CI: 1048, 1376) pg mg Cr ^-1, for 11dh23dinorTxB₂, RI was 908 (95 % CI: 821, 1102) pg mg Cr ^-1. For the first time, we found a significant correlation between 11dhTxB₂ and 11dh23dinorTxB₂ in both healthy adults (r = 0.67, P < 0.001) and CA patients (r = 0.77, P < 0.001).

The establishment of RI provides a reference for diseases related to platelet activation and the use of drugs, and the first discovery of the correlation between 11dhTxB₂ and 11dh23dinorTxB₂ in urine provides a new possibilitie for the diagnostic and prognostic of cardiovascular diseases.