CRP inflammation or infection
The normal determination of CRP is performed to demonstrate or exclude the possible presence of inflammation or infection, or to monitor the outcome of treatment for inflammation.
Before CRP was applied, sedimentation (erythrocyte sedimentation rate, or BSE) was used to demonstrate inflammation. However, at the onset of a disease process, it can take several days for an increase in BSE to occur. With that, the sedimentation rate changes much more slowly than the CRP, which is elevated in six to eight hours after the onset of inflammation. Similarly, BSE decreases much more slowly than CRP after the extinction of a disease process.
Furthermore, sedimentation also depends on gender, age, pregnancy, drug use, hematocrit, and red blood cell morphology, among other factors. Because of all these factors, sedimentation has become of less diagnostic value in the acute phase of inflammation.
As a test for cardiovascular risk, a more sensitive determination of CRP is used, which candemonstrate very low-grade inflammation:
