Table 1. Effect of pregnancy and concentrations. - Clinical Chemistry

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3Centre de Med. Nuci. Serv. de Radiopharm. et. Radioanalyse. Lyon, France. Author for correspondence. Pregnancy and Smoking Increase. Urinary cGMP.
rheumatoid factors should be kept in mind when increased CA 19-9 values are measured that are not clinically expressed. References 1. Albert MB, Steinberg WM, Henry JP. Elevated serum levels of tumor marker CA 19-9 in acute cholangitis. Dig Dis Sci 1988; 33:1223-5.

2. Sawabu N, Takemon Y, Toya D, Yoneshima M, Kidani H, Satomura Y, et al. Factors affecting serum levels of CA 19-9 with special reference to benign hepatobiliary and pancreatic diseases. Gastroenterol Jpn 1986;21:491-8. 3. Nakad A, Colombel JF, Geubel AP, Cerulus G, Farchakh E, Degrez T, et al. L’ict#{232}re eat-il une cause d’erreur dans l’interpr#{233}tation du CA 19-9 s#{233}rique? Acta Gastroenterol Beig 1989;LII:17-22. 4. Boscato LM, Stuart MC. Incidence and specificity of interference in two-site unmunoassays. Clin Chem 1986;32:1491-5. 5. Grassi J. Interferences dues aux anticorps anti-immunoglobulines, un poison pour thus les dosages iinmunologiques I. Origine des anticorps anti-immunoglobulines et m#{233}canisme des interferences. Immunoanal Biol Spec 1994;9:60-7.

B. Blguet1 F. Uabersetzer2 A. Beaudonnet’4 CA. Bizollon3 C. Trepo2 R. Cohen3 ‘Lab. 2Serv.

de Biochim. d’Hepatogastroenterol.

H#{244}tel-Dieu Lyon, France 3Centre de Med. Nuci. Serv. de Radiopharm. et Radioanalyse

Lyon, France Author for correspondence.

Pregnancy and Smoking Urinary cGMP

Increase

To the Editor: Recently, the use of nitric oxide (NO) donors has been proposed in the

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management of preterm labor, supporting a physiological role of NO (1). One possible assessment of NO release is cGMP measurement, given that uterine muscle quiescence has been induced in vitro by increases in cGMP

(2).

We have evaluated the relevance of urinary cGMP concentrations as a marker of a chronic exogemc NO exposure (done in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1983). NO is known to be contained in tobacco (3), so cigarette smokers are a convenient population to test the validity of urinary cGMP. We measured urinary cGMP in smoking and nonsmoking women, pregnant and nonpregnant, by using an RIA (4). All pregnant women had uncomplicated pregnancies, and their gestational age ranged from 12 to 38 weeks. In these women, we first verified, by variance of urinary cGMP concentrations, that no significant difference was observed from first to last trimester. For this, three groups were compared: group I, the first 15 weeks of pregnancy (n = 16); group II (n = 23), from 16 to 33 weeks; and group III (n = 23), from 34 weeks until delivery. The cGMP urinary concentrations were, respectively, 121 ± 56, 118 ± 59, and 147 ± 66 mol/mol of creatinine. By two-way analysis of variance, nonpregnant smokers had a significantly higher concentration of ui-inary cGMP than nonpregnant nonsmokers. Pregnancy was associated with a higher concentration of urinary cGMP than the nonpregnant state, but the difference between smokers and nonsmokers was no longer significant (Table 1). This suggests that urinary cGMP might be a useful marker of NO release. The increase in urinary cGMP in pregnant women suggests also that NO release is stimulated during pregnancy, even without tobacco influence. This study was supported by a “contrat de Recherche Clinique AP-HP.”

CLINICAL CHEMISTRY, Vol. 41, No. 7, 1995

Table 1. Effect of pregnancy and smoking on urinary cGMP concentrations. Mean ± SEM COMP, gLmol/mol of creatinlne

Nonsmoker Smoker Nonpregnant 59 ± 5.6a 90 ± 6.3a Pregnant 113±10” 140±19 a.b Significantly different (P