An Investigation of the Relationship Between Behçet's Disease and Tenascin-C

Abstract

<bold>Objectives:</bold> The study aimed to investigate serum tenascin-C levels and its relationship with pathogenesis of Beh & ccedil;et's disease (BD) with inflammatory processes. <bold>Patients and methods:</bold> This prospective and analytical study included 34 BD patients (19 males, 15 females; mean age: 31.5 +/- 8.2 years; range, 18 to 48 years) who met the 2014 International Criteria for Beh & ccedil;et's Disease and had no comorbidities and 37 healthy volunteers (21 females, 16 males; mean age: 29.6 +/- 5.3 years; range, 21 to 45 years). Sex, age, age at diagnosis, clinical and laboratory data, medication use, and smoking history of the participants were recorded. Serum tenascin-C levels were measured using a commercially available tenascin-C enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit. <bold>Results:</bold> There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of age (p=0.262) and sex (p=0.287). Serum tenascin-C levels were significantly lower in the BD group (10,824 +/- 7,612 pg/mL) compared to the control group (27,574 +/- 14,533 pg/mL, p<0.001). In the receiver operating characteristic analysis performed for the diagnostic value of tenascin-C level in BD, the sensitivity was determined as 79.4% and the specificity as 82.5% (p<0.001). No statistically significant difference was observed in tenascin-C levels in correlation with clinical characteristics, laboratory values, medication use, and smoking in the BD group. <bold>Conclusion:</bold> In contrast to other chronic inflammatory diseases, lower levels of tenascin-C were observed in patients with BD than in the healthy individuals, which can be attributed to the absence of prolonged chronic inflammatory course in BD. The fact that tenascin-C levels are high in other rheumatic inflammatory diseases but low in BD may be useful in the differential diagnosis of BD.