[Rinsho Byori 51 : 13-18, 2003]

Clinical Significance of MMP-3 in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis:
Comparison with other Inflammatory Markers(IL-6, IL-8)

Hidetsugu HAMAKAWA*1, Masao TAKEMURA*2, Masao SATO*3, Ryuki SHINOHE*4,
Hirohisa KOISHI*5, Nobuyuki FURUTA*6, Hirotoshi OHTA*7,
Noriko KOIKE*8, Naoki IWAMOTO*9, Yasuhiro YAMADA*10,
Hisayasu WADA*11, Kuniaki SAITO*12 and Mitsuru SEISHIMA*13

We determined serum metalloproteinase-3(MMP-3) and inflammatory cytokine(IL-6, IL-8) levels in patients with rheumatoid arthritis(RA).
Sera were obtained from 307 healthy subjects(female 140, male 167), 54 RA patients, and 17 osteoarthritis(OA). The MMP-3 concentrations in healthy female and male were 43.3±15.3ng/ml and 90.7±26.0ng/ml, respectively. The serum MMP-3 levels in male were significantly higher than those in female (p＜0.0001). MMP-3 levels in RA patients(259.1±34.2ng/ml) were significantly higher than OA(43.6±6.1ng/ml) or healthy controls. There was a significant correlation between MMP-3 and CRP(r=0.586), IL-6(r=0.345) levels in serum. In contrast, no significant correlation was observed between MMP-3 and IL-8(r=0.19), or CA-RF(r=0.052) levels. However, there were some cases with high MMP-3 levels in CA-RF-negative patients definitely diagnosed as RA. These findings suggest that MMP-3 determination is useful for the early diagnosis and the follow-up during the treatment for RA patients.

*1Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Gifu University School of Medicine, Gifu 500-8705