OBJECTIVES Misdiagnosis of acute aortic syndrome (AAS) significantly increases mortality. Tenascin-C (TN-C) is an extracellular matrix glycoprotein related to cardiovascular injury. The elevation of TN-C in AAS and whether it can discriminate sudden-onset of acute chest pain in Chinese remains unclear.
METHODS We measured the plasma concentration of TN-C by ELISA in a cohort of 376 patients with chest or back pain. Measures to discriminate AAS from acute coronary syndrome (ACS) were compared and calculated.
RESULTS From October 2016 to September 2021, 376 undiagnosed patients with chest or back pain were enrolled. 166 of them were finally diagnosed as AAS, 100 were ACS and 110 without cardiovascular diseases (NCV). TN-C was significantly elevated in AAS at 18.18 ng/mL (IQR: 13.10–27.68) compared with 7.51 ng/mL (IQR: 5.67–11.38) in ACS (P < 0.001) and 3.68 ng/mL (IQR: 2.50–5.29) in NCV (P < 0.001). There was no significant difference in TN-C level among the subtypes of AAS. Of the 166 AAS patients, the peaked level of TN-C was at acute stage (P = 0.012), then a slight of decrease was observed at subacute stage. The area under receiver operating characteristic curve for AAS patients versus NCV was 0.979 (95% CI: 0.964-0.994) for TN-C. At a cutoff level of 11.474 ng/mL, TN-C has a sensitivity of 76.0%, specificity of 85.5%, accuracy of 82.0%, positive predictive value (PPV) of 76.0%, negative predictive value (NPV) of 85.5%. Diagnostic performance of TN-C was superior to D-dimer and hs-cTnT.
CONCLUSIONS The concentration of serum TN-C in AAS patients was significantly higher than that in ACS patients and NCV. TN-C could be a new biomarker to distinguish AAS patients in the early stage after symptoms onset from other pain diseases.
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