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M. Boehme, R. Schindler, Reply, Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, Volume 24, Issue 3, March 2009, Pages 1065–1066, https://doi.org/10.1093/ndt/gfn731
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Sir,
We read with great curiosity the comments by Kunes et al . regarding our publication [ 1 ].
A large part of their comments is related to pentraxin levels after surgery. Kunes et al . doubt that pentraxin levels increase after surgery. However, our manuscript does not deal with patients after surgery, but only quotes one of our previous articles [ 2 ]. In addition, Kunes et al . state: ‘no one up till now has established PTX3 levels after surgery’. We are very surprised by this statement since the same authors last year investigated PTX3 levels after cardiac surgery and commented that ‘we have shown that PTX3 … is released into circulation during cardiac surgical operations…’ [ 3 ].
Kunes et al . are also surprised that the reported ex vivo production of PTX3 in whole blood is very slow and peaks after 72 h. However, the fact that in vivo PTX3 levels increase much faster (for instance, after coronary stenting to >10 ng/ml at 24 h [ 4 ]) does not argue against the slow ex vivo time course. It has been known for many years that ex vivo production of cytokines such as interleukin-1 peaks at 20–24 h [ 5 ], but plasma levels in vivo are at a maximal at 2 h after stimulation [ 6 ].
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