Elastin degradation in systemic vasculitis.

The elastin peptide level (EP) and elastase-type activity (EA) were investigated in 89 patients with different types of systemic vasculitis (polyarteritis nodosa-14, non-specific aortoarteritis-33, temporal arteritis-23 and thromboangiitis obliterans-18) and compared to the controls: 31 patients with leg atherosclerosis and 12 aged subjects with no evident vascular pathology. EP and EA levels in patients with thromboangiitis obliterans were significantly lower as compared to leg atherosclerosis and the aged control group (p < 0.02 for EA, p < 0.05 for EP). The increase of EP predominated in giant-cell arteritis as compared to the other vasculitic groups (18/56 vs. 5/32, p < 0.05); EA in these patients was the lowest. The activation of elastin degradation after corticosteroid treatment was demonstrated by an increase of EP in temporal arteritis (p < 0.05) and of EA in thromboangiitis obliterans (p < 0.03). We suggest that the determination of the above parameters of elastin degradation may be helpful in the search for differences in mechanisms of vascular damage between atherosclerosis and inflammatory vascular diseases.