Relationship between plasma levels of type II phospholipase A2, PAF acetylhydrolase, endothelin-1, and thrombomodulin in patients with infected burns.
The relations between type II phospholipase A2 (PLA2) and PAF acetylhydrolase (PAFAH) levels and those of endothelin-1 (ET-1) and thrombomodulin (TM) were examined in samples containing the maximum amount of TNF-alpha detected over the clinical course for each patient with burn wound infection. The study included 23 patients with a total burn surface area of > 20%. Plasma levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), type II PLA2, PAFAH, TM, and ET-1 were 174.1 +/- 239.5 pg/ml, 229.5 +/- 190.8 ng/ml, 22.68 +/- 7.07 nmol/min per ml, 6.62 +/- 2.78 ng/ml, and 7.45 +/- 2.99 pg/ml, respectively. There were significant correlations between plasma levels of type II PLA2 and TM (r = 0.767, p < 0.0001), between PAFAH and TM (r = 0.542, p = 0.0076), between type II PLA2 and ET-1 (r = 0.688, p = 0.0003), and between PAFAH and ET-1 (r = 0.516, p = 0.0117). These results suggest that the increases in plasma type II PLA2 and PAFAH are related to vascular endothelial disorders in patients with infected burns.