We assessed the influence of hyperoxemia on erythropoietin secretion in patients with various etiological forms of arterial hypertension (essential, n=15; renoparenchymal, n=16; renovascular, n=15) and in 15 healthy subjects. On the first day of the study, blood was withdrawn at 1-hour intervals for the estimation of erythropoietin during a total of 6 hours and at 2-hour intervals for the assessment of PO2. Three days later the same parameters were assessed again at identical time intervals, but the subjects were breathing pure oxygen during the first 2 hours. Breathing with pure oxygen resulted in a significant increase of blood (EPO) was introduced in the treatment of anemia caused by renal failure, the most important side effect of the therapy was an increase of blood pressure or worsening of preexisting hypertension. 12 The proposed mechanisms of hypertension during EPO treatment were increased blood viscosity, loss of hypoxic vasodilation, and inappropriately reduced cardiac output after correction of anemia.24 Furthermore, recent studies suggested that EPO could induce a direct or hormonally mediated vasopressor effect.
36The main stimulus for EPO secretion seems to be a decrease of oxygen supply to the renal tissue.7 As shown by Kurtz et al,7 EPO secretion is determined by the ratio of oxygen supply to oxygen demand in the kidney. The parameter that adequately reflects this ratio is Po 2 in small postcapillary peritubular veins. This local P02 is detected by a putative oxygen sensor regulating EPO secretion.
-8 Limited information is currently available on the influence of hyperoxia on the regulation of EPO secretion.9 -" Changes in renal hemodynamics and tubular function are well described in hypertension. © 1994 American Heart Association, Inc.sive patients. In patients with essential hypertension, unlike in healthy subjects and patients with other etiological forms of arterial hypertension, only a very short-term suppression of erythropoietin levels was observed during hyperoxemia. No significant changes in blood pressure during breathing with pure oxygen were found in any of the studied groups. We conclude the following: (1) Isobaric hyperoxia exerts a significant suppressive effect on plasma erythropoietin levels both in patients with different etiological forms of arterial hypertension and in healthy subjects. (2) Patients with essential hypertension are characterized by a quantitatively different response of plasma erythropoietin to isobaric hyperoxia compared with healthy subjects and patients with renoparenchymal or renovascular hypertension. (3) Oxygen physically dissolved in blood plasma seems to be an important determinant of erythropoietin secretion independent of hemoglobin concentration and oxygen saturation. (Hypertension. 1994;24:486-490.) Key Words • erythropoietin • hypertension, essential • erythropoiesis • oxygen regulation of EPO production, both of these factors might influence EPO secretion. Limited available information on endogenous EPO in arterial hypertension did no...