Plasma thrombomodulin levels in patients with diabetic microangiopathy

Objective To measure the plasma levels of thrombomodulin (TM) in patients with diabetic nephropathy and to study the significance of TM in the pathogenesis of microangiopathy. Methods The levels of plasma TM were measured by ELISA in 30 normal controls (NC group) and 58 cases with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM group), including 10 cases without albuminuria (SDM group), 29 cases with microalbuminuria (EDN group) and 19 cases with macroalbuminuria (CDN group).Plasma endothelin(ET)levelsweremeasuredbyRAST simultaneously. Results The levels of plasma TM were markedly elevated in DM, SDM, EDN and CDN groups than in NC group (P0.001, 0.05, 0.001 and 0.001, respectively). The plasma TM levels in CDN group were significantly higher than those inSDMandEDN groups (P=0.003 and P0.001, respectively). There was a positive correlation between plasma TM and urinary albumin excretion rate (r=0.5390,P0.005), and between plasma TM and plasma ET (r=0.5650, P0.005) in groups with diabetic nephropathy. Conclusions The measurementofplasmaTMisuseful inevaluatingtheearlydiagnosisandseverityintype2 diabetic nephropathy.