METHODS
We performed this study regarding the recommendations put forward via
the Declaration of Helsinki. The study protocol was approved by the
Harran University Faculty of Medicine Ethics Committee and each
participant gave written, informed consent. 95 patients, including 45
patients over the age of 18 who were diagnosed with acute PTE
(non-massive and submassive), and 50 healthy volunteers over the age of
18 with a normal physical examination, who applied to the Harran
University Faculty of Medicine Chest Diseases Polyclinic in 2019, were
included in our study.
We followed the following exclusion criteria in these cases. Patients
with neurological diseases, patients with diabetes, patients with
cardiovascular disease, patients with cancer, patients with rheumatoid
arthritis, patients with kidney disease, individuals with a history of
drug, smoking, alcohol use for any reason within the last 7 days,
patients with infectious diseases, other respiratory diseases, those
with hypoxia, anoxia, metabolic and different systemic diseases were
excluded.
Venous blood samples from the patients and healthy controls in the study
were collected. We centrifuged plasma blood samples at 1500 rpm for 10
min and we got serum. The separated serum was immediately placed in
Eppendorf tubes, and we stored these samples at −80°C until used.
Thiol/disulphide homeostasis evaluation had performed by a fully
automatic method, developed by Erel and Neselioglu [7]. Disulphide
bonds are first reduced with sodium borohydride to create functional
thiol groups. Unused reducing agent, sodium borohydride, was removed
with formaldehyde to prevent reduction of 5,5’ dithiobis (2 nitro
benzoic acid) (DTNB). All thiol groups, including reduced and native
thiol groups, were later fixed by reactions with DTNB. Half of the
difference between total thiol and native thiol determined the dynamic
disulphide amount. After determining native and total thiols, disulphide
levels, disulphide/total thiol, disulphide/native thiol, and native
thiol/total thiol ratios were calculated.