%0 Journal Article %A Yasushi Horimasu %A Noboru Hattori %A Nobuhisa Ishikawa %A Sonosuke Tanaka %A Koji Yoshioka %A Shinichiro Ohshimo %A Francesco Bonella %A Josune Guzman %A Ulrich Costabel %A Nobuoki Kohno %T Serum SP-A and SP-D: Different cutoff values for German and Japanese patients to diagnose idiopathic interstitial pneumonia %D 2011 %J European Respiratory Journal %P p681 %V 38 %N Suppl 55 %X Introduction: Surfactant protein (SP)-A and SP-D are members of the C-type lectin superfamily. Serum levels of SP-A and SP-D are known to be elevated in patients with various interstitial lung diseases; however, the majority of these data have been obtained in Japanese.Objectives: This study was conducted to compare serum levels of SP-A and SP-D between the German and Japanese population and to investigate whether SP-A and SP-D could be used as diagnostic biomarkers in German patients with idiopathic interstitial pneumonias (IIPs).Methods: Serum samples were obtained from Germans (110 patients with IIPs and 57 healthy controls) and Japanese (68 patients with IIPs and 100 healthy controls). Serum SP-A and SP-D levels were measured and cutoff values to discriminate IIP patients from healthy subjects were assessed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis.Results: In healthy subjects, serum levels of SP-D were significantly higher in Germans than those in Japanese (63.9±30.4 ng/ml and 40.2±24.4 ng/ml, p<0.001) whereas serum levels of SP-A were not significantly different (32.1±16.9 ng/ml and 27.3±13.3 ng/ml, p=0.100). ROC analysis revealed that the optimal cutoff values to discriminate IIP patients from healthy subjects in Germans and Japanese were 133.5 ng/ml and 103.0 ng/ml for SP-D, and were 38.9 ng/ml and 32.4 ng/ml for SP-A, respectively.Conclusions: Our data suggest the possibility of SP-A and SP-D to be used as diagnostic biomarkers for IIPs in Germans. Cutoff values to discriminate IIP patients from healthy subjects seem to be different between in Germans and in Japanese, however, further investigations will be required. %U