• Kouichi Hirayama, Miho Nagai, Itaru Ebihara, Homare Shimohata, Masaki Kobayashi, and Akio Koyama.
• Department of Nephrology, Tokyo Medical University Ibaraki Medical Center, Ami, Ibaraki, Japan. k-hira@tokyo-med.ac.jp
• Nephrol. Dial. Transplant. 2011 Mar 1; 26 (3): 868-74.

BackgroundThe contribution of infections to the mortality of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis patients is important and should induce early and careful control of these events. However, the differentiation of infection from active vasculitis is often difficult. The usefulness of serum-soluble triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-1 (TREM-1) for detecting the presence of infectious complications regardless of disease activity was investigated.MethodsSoluble TREM-1 in serum obtained from 41 patients with myeloperoxidase (MPO)-ANCA-associated vasculitis was measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Twenty-nine samples were from active vasculitis patients, 27 samples from inactive vasculitis patients without infection and 17 samples from inactive vasculitis patients with infectious complications. Serum-soluble TREM-1 was also measured in 10 patients with acute pyelonephritis and 30 patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD).ResultsThere was a significant correlation between serum levels of soluble TREM-1 and serum creatinine levels among all patients (r = 0.554, P < 0.0001). The serum-soluble TREM-1/creatinine ratio was higher in inactive vasculitis patients with infectious complications than in active vasculitis, inactive vasculitis without infection and CKD patients (P = 0.0005, P < 0.0001 and P < 0.0001, respectively), but not significantly different to that in acute pyelonephritis patients. On receiver-operating-characteristic curve analysis, a lower-limit value of 9.40 ng/mg for this ratio had a sensitivity of 84.6% and a specificity of 90.8% in differentiating patients with infection from those without infection.ConclusionsThe serum ratio of soluble TREM-1 to creatinine may be a useful marker for detection of infectious complications in MPO-ANCA-associated vasculitis.

25 keywords...

hide…