Abstract
There is growing evidence that local and systemic inflammation plays a role in the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis. Patients with acute coronary syndrome have increased CRP levels before onset.
However, the significance of CRP measurement has not been confirmed in healthy Japanese subjects and patients with atherosclerotic diseases.
Since 2000, we have started to measure hs-CRP using BN-II (Dade-Behring Co., IL, USA) in more than 3000 subjects annually.
The upper-limit of the normal range of hs-CRP is 1.0 mg/l in Japanese. Careful consideration is required in interpreting hs-CRP values. Aging, obesity, and smoking increase the values, while weight reduction, and a moderate intake of alcohol reduce the values.
The accumulation of numbers with regard to each component of metabolic syndrome indicates the elevation of hs-CRP in a stepwise manner. Patients with arrhythmia such as atrial fibrillation show elevated values.
A prospective study on Japanese in the Tokyo area indicated a 22% increase in cardiovascular events in high hs-CRP subjects compared to normal hs-CRP groups. The usefulness of the determination of hs-CRP with plasma lipids is confirmed when predicting high-risk subjects.
