Abstract
Objective: Early diagnosis of acute ischemic stroke patients with large vessel occlusion (LVO) and the transfer of patients who require endovascular treatment to specialized stroke centers are critical for patients. Pentraxin-3 (PTX-3) is a biomarker of vascular inflammation, and its role in stroke, including its relationship with clinical features, is being investigated. In this study, we evaluated the value of PTX-3 levels in the diagnosis of LVO and their relationship with clinical features.
Methods: This study included retrospectively and prospectively enrolled patients diagnosed with acute ischemic stroke. Patients were divided into two groups according to imaging findings: those with and those without LVO. Serum PTX-3 levels were measured and compared between the groups. Stroke severity was evaluated at admission using the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), and clinical outcome was evaluated at the 90th day using the modified Rankin Scale (mRS). Correlation, ROC analysis, and logistic regression methods were used in statistical analyses.
Results: Data from 81 patients were analyzed. Although PTX-3 levels were higher in patients with LVO, the difference was not statistically significant. The discriminative power of PTX-3 for LVO was limited (AUC = 0.58). A positive correlation was found between PTX-3 levels and admission NIHSS. Although an association between PTX-3 and poor clinical outcome was observed in univariate analyses, PTX-3 was not an independent marker in multivariable analyses. The addition of PTX-3 to clinical models did not increase predictive power.
Conclusion: In patients with acute ischemic stroke with LVO, PTX-3 was not a sufficient biomarker for confirming the diagnosis. Although PTX-3 was associated with stroke severity, it could not predict clinical outcome independently. Based on the current findings, PTX-3 does not appear to have a clear contribution to the clinical decision-making process.
Keywords: acute ischemic stroke, clinical outcome, large vessel occlusion, pentraxin-3
Copyright and license
Copyright © 2026 The Author(s). This is an open-access article published by Bolu İzzet Baysal Training and Research Hospital under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
