Anyfanti P, et al. - In patients with cardiovascular diseases galectin-3 has promise as a novel biomarker of cardiovascular fibrosis, so researchers assessed how it is associated with markers of vascular fibrosis, subclinical atherosclerosis, and cardiac function in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a disease with high cardiovascular risk. Participants were RA and non-RA individuals and cardiovascular risk was estimated from the Framingham Heart Study. Using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, serum levels of galectin-3 were measured. Galectin-3 was found to be independently related to both cardiac output and systemic vascular resistance, in multivariate analysis models. Overall, a possible utility of serum galectin-3 was suggested as a marker of cardiac function and cardiovascular fibrosis in a relatively well-controlled cohort of RA patients with low-grade systemic inflammation and long-standing disease.