Systemic inflammation contributes to obesity-associated complications. The short pentraxin C-reactive protein (CRP) is a validated inflammatory marker, whereas long pentraxin-3 (PTX3) limits inflammation and is adaptively stimulated by proinflammatory cytokines in vitro. Severely obese (SO) patients (body mass index [BMI]>40] have the highest obesity-associated complications and increasingly undergo surgical treatment. SO-associated changes in plasma PTX3 and their interactions with systemic inflammation are, however, unknown.
