Serum tenascin-C discriminates patients with active SLE from inactive patients and healthy controls and predicts the need to escalate immunosuppressive therapy: a cohort study

Table 3 Performance of baseline tenascin-C levels to predict disease flares (Cox proportional hazards analysis)

	Univariate analyses		Age and sex adjusted analyses
Flare definition	HR (95 % CI)	p Value	HR (95 % CI)	p Value
Tenascin as continuous variable
(i) New/increased GC	1.39 (1.11–1.73)	0.004	1.37 (1.11–1.70)	0.004
(ii) New/increased GC or IS	1.25 (1.02–1.52)	0.028	1.23 (1.01–1.49)	0.035
(iii) Increase in SLEDAI-2 K ≥3	1.19 (0.87–1.63)	0.277	1.21 (0.86–1.68)	0.270
(iv) BILAG-2004 flare A or B	1.10 (0.91–1.34)	0.323	1.09 (0.89–1.32)	0.403
Tenascin as categorical variable (>659 ng/ml)^a
(i) New/increased GC	3.77 (1.60–8.88)	0.002	3.57 (1.48–8.59)	0.005
(ii) New/increased GC or IS	2.45 (1.10–5.46)	0.028	2.23 (0.98–5.08)	0.056
(iii) Increase in SLEDAI-2 K ≥3	1.42 (0.28–7.21)	0.672	1.52 (0.27–8.64)	0.636
(iv) BILAG-2004 flare A or B	1.74 (0.75–4.04)	0.197	1.64 (0.70–3.88)	0.257

BILAG-2004 British Isles Lupus Assessment Group disease activity index, CI confidence interval, HR hazard ratio, IS immunosuppressants, GC glucocorticoids, SLEDAI-2 K Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index 2000
^aThe threshold value of 659 ng/ml for tenascin-C (TNC) was generated using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis of the relationship between active systemic lupus erythematosus (SLEDAI-2 K ≥6) and baseline TNC
Boldface type indicates statistically significant values

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