Increased excretion of aldosterone in urine from dogs with right-sided congestive heart failure and from dogs with thoracic inferior vena cava constriction.

Abstract

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.