Unbiased Report Exposes An Un-Answered Questions On ADAMTS12

Materials and methods Subjects and protocol Nine maintenance HD patients (five male and four female; mean age, 69.1 �� 13.5 years; mean duration of HD, 88.9 �� 71.6 months; three chronic glomerulonephritis, one diabetic nephropathy, one glomerulosclerosis and four unknown etiology) who had ADAMTS12 received PO of l-carnitine P.O. (900 mg/day) for 1 year were enrolled in this study. Patients were dialyzed for 4�C5 h with high-flux dialyzers three times a week. Nine age- and sex-matched subjects (four male and five female; mean age, 63.4 �� 5.6 years) were used as control. The HD patients underwent a complete history, physical examinations and determinations of blood chemistries including total, free and acyl carnitine and serum free fatty acid (FFA) levels just before and after HD. Then, the route of l-carnitine supplementation was changed see more from PO to IV. After switching to IV l-carnitine administration (1000 mg after every HD session) for a week, blood was drawn just before and after HD to determine total, free and acyl carnitine and FFA levels again. These biochemical variables were measured with the enzymatic method as described previously (SRL, Inc., Tokyo, Japan) [10]. Further, before and 1 month after the IV replacement therapy, hemoglobin, albumin, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, triglycerides (TG), alkaline phosphatase, blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, uric acid, calcium, phosphate and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels were also measured just before the HD session at a commercially available laboratory as described previously (Wako Pure Chemical Industries Ltd, Osaka, Japan) [11]. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels SB431542 were calculated by the Friedewald formula [12]. Informed consent was obtained from all subjects, and the study protocol was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committees of Kurume University School of Medicine and Sugi Cardiovascular Hospital, Japan. This work was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. This trial was registered with the University Hospital Medical Information Network clinical trials database (UMIN000010953). Statistical analysis Data are shown as mean �� SD. Clinical variables, which were not normally distributed such as TG and CRP, were log-transformed. Analyses of significant differences of variables between before and after HD and between before and after switching to IV l-carnitine treatment were performed using a paired t-test. Significant differences of carnitine levels between HD patients and age- and sex-matched control subjects were examined using the unpaired t-test. Correlations between changes in FFA levels from the baseline (��FFA) after IV therapy and ��acyl/free carnitine ratio were determined by a linear regression analysis. Statistical significance was defined as P