PEDIATRICS Vol. 43 No. 3 March 1969, pp. 416-426
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ALBUMIN METABOLISM IN CYSTIC FIBROSIS

Warren Strober M.D.1, Georges Peter M.D.1, and Robert H. Schwartz M.D.1

1 Metabolism Branch of the National Cancer Institute, and the Pediatric Metabolism Branch of the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland

The cause of hypoalbuminemia in cystic fibrosis was investigated with I123-albumin and Cr51-albumin metabolic studies in 19 patients, including 10 patients with hypoalbuminemia. The mean plasma volume of hypoalbuminemia patients was 57.4 ± 9.4 cc/kg, while that of normoalbuminemic patients and control individuals was 43.6 ± 3.1 cc/kg and 42.0 ± 4.4 cc/kg, respectively. Mean albumin synthetic rates, total circulating albumin, and frational catabolic rates in the three groups did not differ significantly. Thus, hypoalbuminemia in older patients with cystic fibrosis results primarily from dilution of a normal albumin mass in an enlarged plasma volume. Seven of 14 patients with cystic fibrosis demonstrated slightly increased gastrointestinal clearance of Cr51-albumin. This was a contributing but relatively minor factor in the production of hypoalbuminemia. Two of the six patients with liver involvement exhibited decreased albumin synthetic rates. In one of these two cases, hyposynthesis was a significant contributing factor to hypoalbuminemia. Hypoalbuminemia in patients with advanced cystic fibrosis suggests the presence of severe cor pulmonale and is therefore of diagnostic significance.

Submitted on May 16, 1968
Accepted on October 12, 1968




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T. F. Dolan JR., D. S. Rowe, and L. E. Gibson
Edema and Hypoproteinemia in Infants with Cystic Fibrosis: The Hypoalbuminemia Sometimes Seen is Presumably Secondary to Malabsorption
Clinical Pediatrics, May 1, 1970; 9(5): 295 - 297.
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