Cardiovascular

Circulating suPAR in Relation to Renal and Cardiovascular Involvement in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Pilot Study.

Napolitano F, Mormile I, et al. • International journal of molecular sciences • 2026

PubMed 42941969 DOI 10.3390/ijms27209200
TL;DR

Circulating suPAR levels are elevated in SLE and may be particularly associated with renal and cardiovascular involvement, supporting its potential as a biomarker of cardiorenal involvement, although validation in larger prospective cohorts is required.

Key Findings

Results

Serum suPAR levels were significantly higher in patients with SLE than in healthy controls.

  • Serum suPAR was measured in SLE patients and healthy controls in a pilot study.
  • The abstract reports the difference as significant but does not give numerical values, sample sizes, or p-values.
Results

Within the SLE cohort, patients with renal involvement had higher suPAR levels than patients without renal involvement.

  • suPAR levels were compared according to the presence or absence of organ involvement within the SLE group.
  • The abstract states that patients with renal involvement had higher levels than their comparison group, without numerical values.
Results

SLE patients with reduced renal function had higher suPAR levels than SLE patients with preserved renal function.

  • Reduced renal function was one of the subgroup comparisons performed within the SLE cohort.
  • Specific thresholds, values, and statistics are not given in the abstract.
Results

SLE patients with cardiovascular involvement had significantly higher suPAR levels than SLE patients without cardiovascular involvement and than healthy controls.

  • The comparison was made against both the SLE patients without cardiovascular involvement and the healthy control group.
  • The abstract describes the difference as significant but gives no numerical values.
Results

Serum suPAR levels were not significantly correlated with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR).

  • This was found despite higher suPAR in patients with reduced renal function in the group comparison.
  • The authors state that the relationship between suPAR and renal function requires validation in larger prospective cohorts.
Conclusions

The authors conclude that suPAR may serve as a biomarker of cardiorenal involvement in SLE, but the findings are preliminary.

  • The study is described as a pilot study.
  • The authors state that the relationship with renal function and clinical outcomes requires validation in larger prospective cohorts.

What This Means

This small pilot study looked at a blood marker called suPAR, which reflects inflammation, immune activation, and stress on blood vessel linings. The researchers measured it in people with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), an autoimmune disease, and in healthy people. Levels were significantly higher in people with lupus. Among the people with lupus, those with kidney involvement or reduced kidney function had higher suPAR levels than those without. Patients with heart and blood vessel involvement also had higher levels than both lupus patients without such involvement and healthy people. However, suPAR did not correlate significantly with estimated glomerular filtration rate, a standard measure of kidney filtering, so the link with kidney function is not straightforward. This research suggests suPAR could become a useful marker for identifying kidney and cardiovascular involvement in lupus. Because the study was small and preliminary, larger studies that follow patients over time are needed to confirm these results and to determine whether suPAR can predict clinical outcomes.

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Citation

Napolitano F, Mormile I, Cevini F, de Paulis A, Rossi F, Montuori N. (2026). Circulating suPAR in Relation to Renal and Cardiovascular Involvement in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Pilot Study.. International journal of molecular sciences. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms27209200