Elevated pentraxin-3 levels are related to blood pressure levels in hypertensive patients: an observational study.

OBJECTIVE: In this study, relationship between systolic and diastolic blood pressure and pentraxin-3 (PTX3) levels in hypertensive patients was investigated.

METHODS: Overall, 80 patients with stage 1 hypertension between 40-61 years of age without any disease and 80 healthy volunteers were included to the study. Blood samples obtained to measure PTX3 levels and biochemical analysis. Relationship between PTX3 levels and clinical and biochemical parameters were analyzed using multivariate regression analysis.

RESULTS: Although systolic and diastolic blood pressures were significant different, there were no differences regarding age and gender between hypertensives and normotensives. In each group, significant statistical differences were found between PTX3 and CRP levels (PTX3 (ng/mL) 35.25±5.45 and 0.27±0.24, p<0.001; CRP (mg/dL) 10.03±5.81 and 4.30±3.38, p<0.001; in hypertensive and normotensive groups respectively). It was observed that increase in PTX3 levels accompanies the increase in systolic and diastolic blood pressures (r2=0.78). It was observed that PTX3 levels are not effected from CRP, lipid levels and body mass index (p>0.05). On multivariate regression analysis PTX3 was found to strongly affect blood pressure (beta=0.82, 95% CI 0.644-0.799, p<0.001, and beta=0.84, 95% CI 0.422-0.799, p<0.001, respectively for systolic and diastolic blood pressures), CRP and total cholesterol are found to affect moderately (beta=0.115-0.265, 95% CI 0.101-0.572, p<0.05 and beta=0.107-0.141, 95% CI 0.041-0.110, p<0.05, respectively).

CONCLUSION: This study showed that PTX3 levels are higher in newly diagnosed hypertensive patients than in healthy individuals. In addition, it was noticed that increased PTX3 levels causes increase in systolic and diastolic blood pressures.