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The aim of this study was to investigate the long-term prognostic value of pentraxin-3 (PTX3) in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). 377 patients were prospectively followed up for 3 years to determine cardiac events including cardiac death or rehospitalization for worsening heart failure. The plasma PTX3 levels were significantly higher in CHF patients than in healthy subjects (p < 0.001), and they increased with advancing New York Heart Association (NYHA) Functional Classification (p < 0.001). Plasma PTX3 levels in CHF patients with cardiac events were significantly higher than in event-free patients (p < 0.001). We determined the normal upper limit of plasma PTX3 levels from the mean + 2 SD value of 64 control subjects (3.64 ng/mL). A Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that patients with increased PTX3 (>3.64 ng/mL) were at a higher risk for cardiac events than those without increased PTX3 (p < 0.01). A multifactorial Cox proportional hazards model showed that increased PTX3 (≥3.64 nglmL) was an independent risk factor for cardiac events in CHF patients (hazard ratio (HR) = 4.224, p < 0.01; 95% CI: 1.130-15.783). Plasma PTX3 levels are a long-term independent predictor of prognosis in patients with CHF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laryngeal carcinoma is a common head and neck cancer with poor prognosis. Patients with laryngeal carcinoma usually present late leading to the reduced treatment efficacy and high rate of recurrence. Despite the advance in the use of molecular markers for monitoring human cancers in the past decades, there are still no reliable markers for use to screen laryngeal carcinoma and follow the patients after treatment. Epigenetics emerged as an important field in understanding the biology of the human malignancies. Epigenetic alterations refer to the dysregulation of gene, which do not involve the alterations of the DNA sequence. Major epigenetic changes including methylation imbalance, histone modification, and small RNA dysregulation could play a role in the development of human malignancies. Global epigenetic change is now regarded as a molecular signature of cancer. The characteristics and behavior of a cancer could be predicted based on the specific epigenetic pattern. We here provide a review on the understanding of epigenetic dysregulation in laryngeal carcinoma. Further knowledge on the initiation and progression of laryngeal carcinoma at epigenetic level could promote the translation of the knowledge to clinical use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]