TY - JOUR T1 - Clinical Utility of YKL-40 in Polymyositis/dermatomyositis-associated Interstitial Lung Disease JF - The Journal of Rheumatology JO - J Rheumatol SP - 1394 LP - 1401 DO - 10.3899/jrheum.170373 VL - 44 IS - 9 AU - Hironao Hozumi AU - Tomoyuki Fujisawa AU - Noriyuki Enomoto AU - Ran Nakashima AU - Yasunori Enomoto AU - Yuzo Suzuki AU - Masato Kono AU - Masato Karayama AU - Kazuki Furuhashi AU - Akihiro Murakami AU - Naoki Inui AU - Yutaro Nakamura AU - Tsuneyo Mimori AU - Takafumi Suda Y1 - 2017/09/01 UR - http://www.jrheum.org/content/44/9/1394.abstract N2 - Objective. Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is involved in polymyositis/dermatomyositis (PM/DM), a disease associated with poor prognoses. Chitinase-3-like-1 protein (YKL-40) has pleiotropic biological activities involved in inflammation, cell proliferation, and tissue remodeling; however, the clinical application of YKL-40 remains limited. We investigated the clinical significance of YKL-40 in PM/DM–ILD.Methods. Sixty-nine consecutive patients with PM/DM–ILD and 34 healthy controls were analyzed. We measured baseline and followup serum YKL-40 using an ELISA, evaluated the association of YKL-40 with clinical variables and survival, and examined YKL-40 expression in lung specimens from patients with PM/DM–ILD using immunohistochemistry.Results. Serum YKL-40 levels were significantly greater in patients with PM/DM–ILD compared with healthy controls (p < 0.0001). Serum YKL-40 was correlated with arterial oxygen pressure (r = –0.40, p < 0.001) and percent-predicted DLCO (r = –0.41, p = 0.01) in patients with PM/DM–ILD. Multivariate Cox hazard analysis demonstrated that higher serum YKL-40 and lower percent-predicted forced vital capacity were independently associated with a poor prognosis. Immunohistochemistry analysis demonstrated that YKL-40 expression was enhanced in aggregated intraalveolar macrophages and hyperproliferative alveolar epithelial cells in patients with PM/DM–ILD.Conclusion. YKL-40 is a promising biomarker for evaluating PM/DM–ILD activity/severity and predicting disease prognosis. Insights into YKL-40 might help elucidate the pathogenesis of PM/DM–ILD. ER -