Evaluation of Pentraxin-3 Levels in Children With Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome

Abstract

Background:Early recognition of cardiac involvement and prediction of disease prognosis areessential for the management of inflammatory diseases such as multisystem inflammatorysyndrome. This study aimed to investigate the role of Pentraxin-3 levels in identifying cardiacinvolvement and evaluating disease severity in patients with multisystem inflammatorysyndrome.Methods:The study included 56 multisystem inflammatory syndrome patients and26 healthy children as a control group. The multisystem inflammatory syndrome group wasdivided into those with cardiac involvement (n=34) and those without (n=22), as well asthose with clinically mild-moderate (n=30) and severe (n=26) multisystem inflammatorysyndrome. Blood samples for measurement of Pentraxin-3 levels were obtained from allpatients before treatment and from the healthy controls.Results:In the patient group, the meanage was 8.2 +/- 4 years (range: 2-17 years), and the male-to-female ratio was 1.8. In the controlgroup, these values were 9.5 +/- 3.7 years (range: 2-16 years) and 1.9, respectively (p>0.05).Plasma Pentraxin-3 levels were significantly higher in multisystem inflammatory syndromepatients compared to controls (7.1 +/- 5 ng/mL vs. 2.9 +/- 2.1 ng/mL,p=0.001). Patients withcardiac involvement had a significantly higher median Pentraxin-3 level than those without (5.8ng/mL vs. 4.1 ng/mL,p=0.004). Severe disease was also associated with a higher medianPentraxin-3 level compared to mild-moderate disease (6.1 ng/mL vs. 4.4 ng/mL,p=0.001).Pentraxin-3 level was negatively correlated with left ventricular ejection fraction and positivelycorrelated with B-type natriuretic peptide, troponin.Conclusion:Elevated Pentraxin-3 levels inmultisystem inflammatory syndrome patients may help predict the clinical course of the diseaseand cardiac involvement. However, larger-scale prospective studies are needed to furtherelucidate this.