Increased Excretion of Aldosterone in Urine From Dogs With Right-Sided Congestive Heart Failure and From Dogs With Thoracic Inferior Vena Cava Constriction

¹ From the Laboratory of Kidney and Electrolyte Metabolism, National Heart Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland

Extracts of urine from 11 normal dogs, 9 dogs with cardiac failure and 10 dogs with thoracic inferior vena cava constriction and ascites were assayed for aldosterone-like activity. The activity in urine from dogs with heart failure and from dogs with thoracic caval constriction was equivalent to 52 and 167 µg/day of DCA, respectively, and renal Na excretion was uniformly low. No activity was detected in 4 days' urine from normal dogs but chromatographic fractionation and assay of a 26-day collection of normal dog urine showed Na-retaining and increased K-excreting activity in the aldosterone fraction only. Following bilateral adrenalectomy and discontinuation of DCA therapy in 2 dogs with caval constriction, all urinary aldosterone-like activity disappeared and a natriuresis occurred. Assays of chromatographic fractions of extracts of urine from dogs with heart failure and from dogs with caval constriction revealed activity only in the aldosterone fraction.

Note:
with the surgical assistance of Alfred Casper and the technical assistance of Lala Mathers Dunbar

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