News Release

2007/4/25

Research progress regarding the "Vascular Injury marker Pentraxin 3(PTX3)" will be presented at The 51st Annual General Assembly and Scientific Meeting of Japan College of Rheumatology

Research progress regarding the "Vascular Injury marker Pentraxin 3(PTX3)" will be presented at The 51st Annual General Assembly and Scientific Meeting of Japan College of Rheumatology held on April 26-29th, 2007 in Yokohama

on April 28th, 2007 Oral presentation: W79-3 Plasma pentraxin 3 (PTX3) levels in patients with rheumatoid arthritis Yu Asanuma, Kojiro Sato, Kazuhiro Yokota, Toshiko Ishibashi, Yasushi Shindo, Yoshihiro Yoshida, Noritsune Kouzu, Teppei Kamikawa, Haruhiko Akiba, Kyoichi Nakajima, Yuji Akiyama, Toshihide Mimura Division of Rheumatology and Applied Immunology, Department of Medicine, Saitama Medical University Pentraxin 3 (PTX3) is produced mainly by macrophages and vascular endothelial cells in response to the inflammatory stimuli such as IL-1 and TNF-alpha. It has been implicated in inflammation, immune response and atherosclerosis. Patients with RA have chronic inflammation and increased atherosclerosis. We compared plasma levels of PTX3 in 76 patients with RA and in 9 patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). PTX3 levels were significantly higher in patients with RA (3.78±2.62 ng/mL) than those with SSc (2.62±1.28ng/mL, P=0.038). In patients with RA PTX3 levels were correlated with serum levels of CRP (P=0.01) or MMP-3 (P=0.004) and corticosteroid use (P<0.001) but not related to age, gender, ESR, RF or DAS 28. PTX3 may contribute to the pathogenesis and possibly accelerated atherosclerosis in RA.

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Japan College of Rheumatology 2007
A vascular injury marker, Pentraxin 3 (PTX3)