Elevated Oxidative Stress Markers and its Relationship With Endothelial Dysfunction in Behçet Disease

Abstract

Behçet's disease (BD) is a multisystemic disorder characterized by endothelial dysfunction. However, the relationship between oxidative stress and endothelial function has not been clearly shown. We investigated the relationship between oxidative stress markers and endothelial function in patients with BD. Patients with BD (n = 40) having active disease and sex- and age-matched 40 controls were included. Endothelial function was assessed by flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) technique. Serum gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) and high-sensitive C-reactive protein levels (hsCRP) were measured in all participants. Brachial artery FMD was significantly lower in patients with BD than in controls. Gamma-glutamyltransferase and hsCRP levels were higher in patients with BD than in controls. Also, GGT and hsCRP levels were inversely correlated with endothelial function. Oxidative stress markers are elevated in patients with BD having active disease. This may be one of the reasons behind the vasculitis in active BD.

Subclinical atherosclerosis in Behcet’s disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…1), 24 studies met the criteria for inclusion in the analysis: 9 investigated FMD and/or EMD [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26], 11 IMT [8,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] and 4 investigated both [37][38][39][40].…”

“…Several inflammatory, immunological and metabolic factors may contribute to early FMD dysfunction in BD: elevated plasma concentration of homocysteine [19,26] Creactive protein [22,26], enhanced oxidative [24] and nitrative stress [45], impaired biological activity of nitric oxide [42,43] and an abnormal lipid profile [19,22,43]. However, because these data were not uniformly present in the studies included in the metaanalysis we could not perform a meta-regression that would have explained to what extent the abovementioned factors contributed to the FMD difference between BD and controls.…”

“…Random effect meta-analysis revealed wide heterogeneity amongst the studies (I 2 ¼ 95.6%, p o 0.0001) suggesting poor prospects for average pooled estimates. Having explored the causes for this heterogeneity, four studies [18,19,21,24] deviated slightly from the FMD methodology in that the cuff of the sphygmomanometer was applied at the forearm, a technique that yields a lower value than applying the cuff at the upper arm [41]. Removal of the four studies evidenced impaired FMD in the overall BD group (SMD ¼ À0.89, 95% CI: À 1.11 to À 0.66, p ¼ 0.0001, I 2 ¼ 45.3%) ( Fig.…”

Serum gamma-glutamyl transferase levels and in-hospital mortality in patients with acute heart failure

“…Increased activity of GGT may be linked to greater oxidative stress. Therefore, the relationship between various diseases and GGT levels has been investigated in several studies [7][8][9][10][11]. A large Austrian study showed for the first time the prognostic value of GGT with regard to fatal events caused by congestive heart failure (CHF) in apparently healthy subjects [12].…”

Endocan Measurement for Active Behçet Disease

“…In vitro studies have revealed that the major cause related with the etiopathogenesis in patients with BD is induction of endothelial cells by oxidative stress. 9,10 Endocan is a dermatan sulphate proteoglycan molecule. It is an endothelial marker expressed by endothelial cells.…”