J Clin Pathol Qual Control.  2001 Dec;23(2):259-263.

Distribution of High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein in Korean Healthy Individuals

• Hur M
• Lee YK
• Kang HJ
• Lee KM

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Elevated high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) is a strong predictor of cardiovascular events. The establishment of population-based cutpoints is important for the clinical application of hs-CRP assay. We investigated the distribution of hs-CRP concentrations in Koreans.
METHODS
The study population consisted of 2,010 apparently healthy individuals. Except 33 individuals with hs-CRP levels same or more than 15 mg/L, 1,977 individuals were enrolled: 1,158 men and 819 women (mean age of 45.5 years). We conducted hs-CRP assay with Beckman Coulter IMMAGE autoanalyzer.
RESULTS
The distribution of hs-CRP was highly skewed, and the concentration at 97.5th percentile was 6.41 mg/L. There was no difference of age or gender distribution according to the hs-CRP concentrations. Among the 51 individuals same or above 97.5th percentile, only 33% (17/51) showed increased or borderline values of total cholesterol. The hs-CRP concentrations at higher percentiles were relatively low compared with some foreign data.
CONCLUSIONS
Our observations suggest that a single reference value of hs-CRP can be applied to the Korean normal population regardless of age or gender difference, and these can provide fundamental data for the interpretation of individual hs-CRP results. Further studies are required to evaluate the usefulness of hs-CRP as one of the components of routine cardiovascular assessment.

MeSH Terms

Asian Continental Ancestry Group
C-Reactive Protein*
Cholesterol
Female
Humans
Male
Reference Values
C-Reactive Protein
Cholesterol