Background: A long pentraxin, PTX3, is produced by vascular cells or inflammatory cells and released into the circulation, possibly reflecting local inflammation in the cardiovascular system.
Aim: This study was designed to assess the clinical significance of plasma pentraxin 3 (PTX3) levels in chronic heart failure (CHF).
Methods: We measured plasma PTX3 levels in 37 patients with non-ischemic CHF (dilated cardiomyopathy) using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) methods.
Results: The plasma PTX3 levels were higher in CHF patients than in healthy subjects (P=0.001), and the CHF patients in the highest tertile of plasma PTX3 levels had more cardiac events than the patients in the lowest tertile (42% vs. 0%, P=0.02). Multivariate regression analysis showed that PTX3 was the most significant predictor of cardiac events (hazard ratio 1.912 for each increase in PTX3 of 1 ng/ml, P=0.019, 95% CI 1.114-3.282). In addition, PTX3 was strikingly expressed in human myocardial cells obtained from a biopsy specimen in a patient.
Conclusion: Plasma PTX3 levels might be a potentially useful biomarker to predict prognosis as well as to detect inflammatory status in patients with CHF.