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COMPARISON OF PLASMA CHROMOGRANIN A BETWEEN PATIENTS WITH ESSENTIAL HYPERTENSION, HEALTHY SUBJECTS AND PATIENTS WITH PHEOCHROMOCYTOMA: PP.12.459

Chromogranin A (ChrA) is an acidic soluble protein that plays an important role in formation of dense core vesicles of neuroendocrine cells. Apart from being useful in the diagnosis of multiple endocrine tumours, such as pheochromocytoma, it is increasingly being recognized as an important factor in cardiovascular disease and essential hypertension (EH). A number of studies have demonstrated the link between increased sympathoadrenal activity and hypertension, showing increased ChrA levels in patients with EH, while others have found no evidence for direct effect of ChrA in modulating blood pressure. Aim: The aim of this study was to compare ChrA levels between patients with EH, healthy controls (HC) and patients with pheochromocytoma. Patients and Metbods: The study population consisted of 30 patients with EH, 12 patients with pheochromocytoma and 39 HC. Chromogranin (nmol/l) was measured in peripheral blood by radioimmunoassay. Results: Patients with pheochromocytoma had higher levels of ChrA than HC and hypertensive patients (11.05 vs. 4.15 vs. 5.03 nmol/l, respectively, p < 0.001) but there was no statistically significant difference between HC controls and patients with EH (p = 0.123). No difference was found in age and sex distribution between the three groups (p = 0.853 and p = 0.429, respectively). Conclusions: Patients with pheochoromocytoma exhibit highly elevated levels of ChrA compared to both groups, as expected. However, our findings do not confirm previous reports as we observed no significant difference in ChrA levels between essential hypertensives and NC and a possible explanation could be the influence of antihypertensive therapy in our hypertensive patients. On the other hand it has been shown that the majority of antihypertensive drugs do not alter ChrA levels, therefore our results require further investigation. Figure 1. No caption available.