Hst201

For measurements of hemoglobin (HB), creatinine (CR), urea nitrogen (BUN), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and aspartate aminotransferase (AST), blood was collected from each patient after gaining the consent. These blood parameters were measured at the Central Clinical Laboratory of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University. HB was measured with automated cell counters via standard techniques by HST201 (Sysmex, Japan). CR, BUN, ALT and AST were examined by Beckman automatic biochemical analyzer AU5431 (America). After overnight fasting, between 6–7 a.m., blood from the median cubital vein was drawn into ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA)-containing tubes, centrifuged at 4°C (3,000 rpm in 10 min) within 2 h after collection and stored at −80°C for later analyses (i.e., to detect Gal-3 and TIMP-1 levels).
Plasma Gal-3 levels and TIMP-1 were detected by a Human Gal-3 Quantikine ELISA Kit (R&D Systems Inc., Minneapolis, MN, USA) and a human TIMP-1 Quantikine ELISA Kit (Abbkine, Inc., China) in duplicates wells following protocols provided by the manufacturer, respectively. The mean plasma Gal-3 and TIMP-1 were calculated as the final level. The detection range of the plasma Gal-3 was 0–4,000 pg/mL. The calibration range of serum TIMP-1 was 31.25–2,000 ng/mL, and the limit of detection was 16 ng/mL.

For measurements of hemoglobin (HB), blood cell counts or high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), blood was collected via the median cubical vein using EDTA-containing tubes at admission and daily afterwards. HB, white blood cell (WBC) and neutrophils were measured with automated cell counters via standard techniques by HST201 (Sysmex, Japan). hs-CRP was measured by high-sensitivity particle-enhanced immunoturbidimetric method using BN II (Siemens, Germany). Blood was also drawn into sodium citrate-containing tubes, at admission and then daily after a 12-h overnight fasting for measurements of fibrinogen, D-dimer and fibrinogen degradation products (FDP), by using the latex agglutination test (Sysmex CA − 7000, Sysmex, Japan). To detect the peak of creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB), blood was collected into tubes containing no anticoagulant at admission and then every 6 h after symptom onset for 24 h, CK-MB were determined by the spectrophotometric method using the Olympus AU640 Clinical Chemistry analyzer (Olympus Diagnostica, Hamburg, Germany).