Can Pentraxin-3 be a Candidate Marker in the Follow-Up of the Patients With Behçet’s Disease?

Banu ALPASLAN MESCİ1, Banu İŞBİLEN BAŞOK2, Hatice GÜL SAĞUN1, Gökhan GÖNENLİ1, Mukaddes KAVALA3, Esen KASAPOĞLU GÜNAL4, Esra EKİZ5, Ferruh İŞMAN2, Aytekin OĞUZ1

1Department of Internal Medicine, Medeniyet University Göztepe Training and Research Hospital, İstanbul, Turkey
2Department of Biochemistry, Medeniyet University Göztepe Training and Research Hospital, İstanbul, Turkey
3Department of Dermatology, Medeniyet University Göztepe Training and Research Hospital, İstanbul, Turkey
4Department of Rheumatology, Medeniyet University Göztepe Training and Research Hospital, İstanbul, Turkey
5Department of Internal Medicine, Esenler Women’s & Children Hospital, İstanbul, Turkey

Keywords: Behçet's disease, cytokine, inflammation

Abstract

Objectives: This study aims to assess the level of pentraxin-3 (PTX-3) as an inflammatory marker and compare it with C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in patients with Behçet’s disease (BD).
Patients and methods: Forty-two patients with BD (15 males, 27 females; mean age 39.7±8.6 years; range 20 to 64 years) and 42 age- and sex- matched healthy controls (14 males, 28 females; mean age 40.8±8.2 year; range 25 to 60 years) were included in the study. Serum CRP and plasma PTX-3 levels were measured. Subgroup analyses were performed according to clinical manifestations of patients with BD.
Results: Both PTX-3 and CRP levels were significantly higher in patients with BD than controls (1.33±0.29 vs 0.85±0.12, p<0.05 for PTX-3 and 0.71±0.13 vs 0.27±0.03, p<0.001 for CRP, respectively). Area under the curve was 0.633±0.062 vs 0.729±0.05, respectively. Mean PTX-3 and CRP levels were 1.1 vs 1.5, p=0.5; 0.5 vs 0.9, p=0.5; respectively, in patients with mucocutaneous involvement alone and with other involvements, whereas they were 0.9 vs 1.6, p=0.1; 0.5 vs 0.8, p=0.3; respectively, in patients with and without peripheral arthritis, and were 1.7 vs 0.9, p=0.06; 1.0 vs 0.5, p=0.07; respectively, in patients with and without uveitis.
Conclusion: Although PTX-3 levels were higher in patients with BD than healthy controls, sensitivity and specificity of PTX-3 was not different than CRP in patients with BD.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Financial Disclosure

The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.