[The clinical significance of plasma PTX3 in patients with secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis].

ABSTRACT

Objective: To investigate the significance of plasma pentraxin 3 (PTX3) in patients with secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (sHLH). Methods: Plasma PTX3 levels were tested by ELISA in 48 newly diagnosed sHLH patients, 18 healthy volunteers and 9 lymphoma controls in the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University from January 2017 to July 2019. Clinical parameters were collected, and the correlations with PTX3 levels were analyzed. Results: PTX3 level in newly diagnosed group was significantly higher than that of healthy control group [16.29(1.17-66.00) vs. 0.76(0.01-7.86) µg/L, P<0.01]. Patients with lymphoma-associated HLH(LHLH) had higher plasma level of PTX3 than Fhose with infection-associated HLH (IHLH) [24.29(3.36-66.00) vs. 9.56(1.17-36.50)µg/L, P<0.05]. Plasma PTX3 levels in 48 sHLH patients were positively correlated with serum ferritin (P<0.05). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for plasma PTX3 levels of sHLH and healthy controls produced a cutoff value at 3.9 µg/L, with its 86.7% sensitivity and 94.4% specificity. And ROC analysis showed that PTX3 17.5 µg/L was the critical value for diagnosis of LHLH from non-LHLH group, that the sensitivity and specificity were 63.0% and 76.2% respectively. The 1-year overall survival (OS) rate in patients with PTX3≥17.5 µg/L was significantly lower in those with PTX3<17.5 µg/L (18.5% vs. 75.8%, P<0.01). Conclusion: These results indicate the potential of PTX3 as a biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis in patients with sHLH.