SAN DIEGO – Plasma levels of serotonin were significantly elevated in patients with decompensated systolic heart failure, compared with patients in the compensated state and with normal controls, according to a single-center study.
The finding suggests that serotonin has an active role in the progression of heart failure, researchers led by Dr. Ahmed M. Selim wrote in a poster at the meeting.
“More studies should be done to test the sensitivity, specificity, and prognostic value of serotonin as a marker for congestive heart failure and also to investigate the therapeutic benefits of the medications affecting this pathway,” noted the researchers of the cardiology department at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York.
Dr. Selim and his associates collected plasma serotonin levels from 29 patients who were admitted with decompensated heart failure, 61 patients with stable heart failure, and 22 normal controls. They excluded patients on medications affecting serotonin receptors and those with pulmonary hypertension. All heart failure patients were on stable doses ofheedications and had left-ventricular ejection fractions of 40% or less;, wntrols had a mean ejection fraction of 59%. Ppatients' mean age was 55 years;, a% were male.
The mean serotonin level in controls was 2.4 ng/mL, vs. 4.1 ng/mL in the compensated group and 11.8 ng/mL in the decompensated group,. ndependent of age, race, renal function, diabetes mend hypertension. “All results were highly significant,” the researchers wrote.