E-Mail karger@karger.com Original Paper – Advances in CKD 2017 Blood Purif 2017;43:210–217 DOI: 10.1159/000452731 Plasma Gelsolin and Its Association with Mortality and Hospitalization in Chronic Hemodialysis Patients Cesar Flores Gama a Laura M. Rosales b Georges Ouellet c Yanna Dou d Stephan Thijssen b Len Usvyat e Hanjie Zhang b Viktoriya Kuntsevich f Nathan W. Levin f Peter Kotanko b, f a Department of Nephrology, National Institute of Cardiology Ignacio Chávez, Mexico City, Mexico; b Renal Research Institute, New York, NY, USA; c Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont, Montreal, QC, Canada; d The Nephrology Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Henan, China; e Fresenius Medical Care North America, Waltham, MA, and f Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA and cardiovascular mortality, and recurrent event survival analysis for hospitalization. Results: We studied 153 pa- tients; mean age was 60.5 ± 14.7; 52% were males. The mean pGSN level was 6,617 ± 1,789 mU/ml. In univariate analysis, pGSN was positively correlated with body mass index (r = 0.2, p = 0.01), pre-HD serum albumin (r = 0.247, p = 0.002), and pre-HD serum creatinine (r = 0.381, p < 0.001), and in- versely with age (r = –0.286, p < 0.001), CRP (r = –0.311, p < 0.001), and IL-6 (r = –0.317, p < 0.001). In the adjusted analy- sis, the associations with CRP and creatinine were retained. pGSN levels tended to be lower in patients who died (p = 0.08). There was no association with all-cause or cardiovas- cular mortality, or all-cause hospitalization. Of note, fT3 was lower in patients who died (p = 0.001). Conclusions: Even though pGSN was inversely correlated with age, CRP and IL- 6, suggesting that inflammation may influence pGSN, lower pGSN levels were not associated with hospitalization, all- cause and cardio-vascular mortality in this patient popula- tion. © 2017 S. Karger AG, Basel Key Words Cytokines · Gelsolin · Hemodialysis · Inflammation · Uremic toxins · Free triiodothyronine · Hemodialysis · Mortality · Hospitalization Abstract Background: Human plasma gelsolin (pGSN) is an actin- binding protein that is secreted into the extracellular fluid, with the skeletal muscle and myocardial tissues being its major source. Depletion of pGSN has been shown to be re- lated to a variety of inflammatory and clinical conditions. Methods: pGSN levels were prospectively determined in prevalent maintenance hemodialysis (HD) patients from 3 U.S. dialysis centers. Demographics (age, time since dialysis initiation, race, gender, body height and weight, comorbidi- ties), inflammatory markers (C reactive protein, CRP; inter- leukin 6, IL-6), free triiodothyronine (fT3), and routine labora- tory parameters were obtained. We performed Kaplan–Mei- er and Cox proportional hazard survival analysis for all-cause Published online: January 24, 2017 Laura M. Rosales, MD Renal Research Institute 315 East, 62nd Street, 4th Floor New York, NY 10065 (USA) E-Mail laura.rosales  @  rriny.com © 2017 S. Karger AG, Basel www.karger.com/bpu