# Regenerating Family Member 3 Alpha Is Predictive of Mortality Following Emergent Large Vessel Occlusion

## TL;DR

Higher levels of a protein called REG3A in stroke patients during treatment are linked to increased risk of death, suggesting it could help predict outcomes.

## Contribution

This study identifies REG3A as a potential biomarker for predicting mortality in patients with large vessel occlusion strokes.

## Key findings

- Patients who died had significantly higher plasma REG3A levels during mechanical thrombectomy compared to survivors.
- Higher REG3A levels were associated with increased odds of death in logistic regression analysis.
- REG3A showed moderate discrimination in predicting mortality with an AUC of 0.669.

## Abstract

Regenerating Family Member 3 Alpha (REG3A) is an antimicrobial protein secreted by the intestine and pancreas with additional immunomodulatory properties. Previously, we published that REG3A expression in ischemic stroke patient systemic blood, during mechanical thrombectomy (MT), is significantly associated with inflammatory cytokines and patient function on admission. This paper, however, did not investigate post-acute death rates. Therefore, we investigated plasma REG3A protein expression, during MT, in patients (n = 141) that survived or died within the end of the follow-up after MT. Subjects who died had significantly higher systemic plasma REG3A levels at the time of MT compared to survivors (p = 0.001). Age, sex, time from last known normal, and admission NIHSS were included as predictors to control for confounding variables and were all examined to determine their association in patient mortality. Logistic regression was used to demonstrate that higher odds of death were associated with increased REG3A levels (p = 0.002). REG3A demonstrated acceptable discrimination (AUC (95% CI): 0.669 (0.566–0.772) in predicting mortality. The overall model with age, sex, time from last known normal, and admission NIHSS discriminated well between survivors and those who died (AUC (95% CI): 0.784 (0.703–0.864)). In conclusion, REG3A could be promising as a biomarker to prognosticate stroke outcomes and stratify high-risk groups following acute ischemic stroke.