Prevention of delayed vasospasm by an endothelin ETA receptor antagonist, BQ-123: change of ETA receptor mRNA expression in a canine subarachnoid hemorrhage model.

The authors investigated the roles of endothelin (ET)-1 and the ETA receptor in the pathogenesis of delayed cerebral vasospasm following subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). A study was made of the preventive effect of a novel ETA receptor antagonist, BQ-123, on vasospasm and the expression of the ETA receptor messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) using a canine two-hemorrhage SAH model. Continuous intrathecal administration of BQ-123 (5 x 10(-6) mol/day) prevented narrowing of the basilar artery on Day 7 after SAH in 97.6% of cases in the study group versus 70.7% of cases in the control group (p < 0.05). While expression of the mRNA-coding ETA receptor was not detected in the control animals, it markedly increased on Day 3 after SAH and was also detected on Day 7. The results suggest that endothelin-1 and the ETA receptor participate in the pathogenesis of delayed cerebral vasospasm following SAH.