The Angiopoietin-like protein 4: a promising biomarker to distinguish brucella spondylitis from tuberculous spondylitis

OBJECTIVE: The Angiopoietin-like protein 4 (ANGPTL-4) has been proved to be a protein associated with multiple inflammatory responses. Nevertheless, whether it contributes to distinguishing brucella spondylitis (BS) from tuberculous spondylitis (TS) remains an open question. Our study aim is to explore the capability of the ANGPTL-4 to differentiating BS from TS. MATERIALS AND METHOD: In our study, 53 patients were screened out according to the criteria precisely in Xinjiang Medical University Affiliated of the First Hospital from 1 January, 2016, to 31 December, 2018. Their clinical data were retrospectively reviewed. All of them underwent pathological biopsy and magnetic resonance imaging examination. All the frozen tissue sections were stained for testing ANGPTL-4. RESULT: Among the 53 patients, BS had 26 patients, and TS had 27 patients. There was no significant difference between the baseline (P = 0.682) between the two groups. The positive rate of ANGPTL-4 in TS patients (24/27, 88.89%) was higher than that in BS patients (17/26, 65.83%) (P < 0.05). The incidence of microangiopathy and fibrous connective tissue hyperplasia in patients with BS was distinctly higher than those in the TS (P = 0.001, P = 0.008, respectively). Patients of TS frequently presented more granuloma, caseous necrosis, epithelial-like reaction, interleukin 6 (IL-6), and C-reactive protein (CRP) than those of BS. CONCLUSION: Our study provided novel insights into distinguishing BS from TS using the ANGPTL-4 combining with histopathology, which may become new supporting evidence.