C-reactive protein is a recognized marker of systemic inflammation and can predict cardiac events in healthy, non-surgical patients along with the more universally recognized cardiac risk factors. The new study notes that research on CRP levels has been extended to the cardiac surgical population and investigates CRP levels as additional predictors for adverse events and increased mortality in otherwise healthy patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery, according to the release.
Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and Baylor College of Medicine Division of Cardiovascular Anesthesia, Texas Heart Institute, St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in Houston, studied 914 patients undergoing routine, non-emergency CABG surgery to determine whether circulating preoperative CRP levels in patients could help predict hospital length of stay and long-term postoperative survival.
The researchers found that patients with circulating CRP levels of more than 10 mg/L were at greater risk for adverse events compared with patients with the lowest preoperative CRP level. Additionally, patients with preoperative levels as low as 3 mg/L required a longer hospital state and were at significant risk for increased mortality up to five years following surgery, according to the release.
Read the ASA’s release on CRP levels in coronary artery bypass graft surgery.
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