Serum tenascin-C discriminates patients with active SLE from inactive patients and healthy controls and predicts the need to escalate immunosuppressive therapy: a cohort study
2015
Abstract
The aim of this study was to examine whether circulating levels of the proinflammatory glycoprotein tenascin-C (TNC) are useful as an activity-specific or predictive biomarker in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Conclusions: We found that circulating levels of TNC aided in the discrimination of patients with SLE with active disease from HC or patients with no or low disease activity.
Moreover, high levels of TNC were associated with an increased risk of the need to start or escalate the dose of GC. Further studies with a larger cohort of patients are required to validate the role of TNC as a useful serum biomarker for monitoring disease activity and predicting flares in patients with SLE.