serum endoglin levels in patients suffering from systemic sclerosis and elevated systolic pulmonary arterial pressure血清endoglin患有系统性硬化和收缩期肺动脉压力升高.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Rheumatology Volume 2010, Article ID 969383, 6 pages doi:10.1155/2010/969383 Clinical Study Serum Endoglin Levels in Patients Suffering from Systemic Sclerosis and Elevated Systolic Pulmonary Arterial Pressure Paola Ximena Coral-Alvarado,1, 2 Maria Fernanda Garces,3 Jorge Eduardo Caminos,3 2 ´ ´ 2 1, 2 Antonio Iglesias-Gamarra, Jose Felix Restrepo, and Gerardo Quintana 1 Rheumatology Section, Fundaci´on Santa Fe de Bogota, School Medicine Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia ´ ´ 2 Rheumatology Unit, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia ´ 3 Biochemistry Unit, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia ´ Correspondence should be addressed to Paola Ximena Coral-Alvarado, pxcoral@ and Gerardo Quintana, ge quintana@ Received 16 April 2010; Revised 11 June 2010; Accepted 20 July 2010 Academic Editor: Lorinda Chung Copyright © 2010 Paola Ximena Coral-Alvarado et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is the main cause of morbimortality in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Increased Eng expression has been demonstrated in SSc patients. Objective. Ascertaining serum levels of En