The American College of Cardiology says a blood test that measures CRP can determine whether a person is at risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
The American College of Cardiology recently released recommendations indicating that inflammation should be considered when trying to predict heart disease.
In a report issued in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on Sept. 29, the college said that the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) blood test that measures CRP, a known inflammatory marker that increases in response to inflammation in the body, can determine whether a person is at risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD).
“Because clinicians will not treat what they do not measure, universal screening of hsCRP in both primary and secondary prevention patients, in combination with cholesterol, represents a major clinical opportunity and is therefore recommended,” said the American College of Cardiology.
“In patients with known CVD, hsCRP level is at least as predictive of future events as LDL cholesterol levels, even in patients treated with statin therapy,” the college said in a separate statement.
It is referring to low-density lipoprotein that is sometimes called “bad” cholesterol, and statins, meanwhile, are a class of drugs that are used to lower cholesterol in the blood.
“In individuals with increased inflammatory burden, an early initiation of lifestyle interventions is recommended to reduce inflammatory risk,” the report said, adding that a “finding of a persistently elevated hsCRP level should lead to consideration of initiation or intensification statin therapy, irrespective of LDL cholesterol.”
The report further stated that for people who have cardiovascular disease who are either taking or not taking statins, the inflammation measurement “is at least as powerful a predictor of recurrent vascular events as that of LDL cholesterol” and shows the importance of evaluating residual inflammation in patients.
It also noted that a low dose of colchicine, a medication that is used to treat gout and sometimes a type of heart inflammation called pericarditis, has been shown to reduce cardiovascular events in individuals with chronic stable atherosclerosis, or the buildup of fats and cholesterol on artery walls.
