C-reactive protein as a predictor for poor collateral circulation in patients with chronic stable coronary heart disease

Aim To investigate the association between serum C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and coronary collateral circulation (CCC) in Chinese patients with angiography-proven 95% coronary stenosis.Methods In this study, 1158 patients with angiography-proven 95% occlusion in 1 major epicardial coronary artery were enrolled, and then classified into two groups: poor CCC (Rentrop grades 0-1) and good CCC (Rentrop grades 2-3). CRP levels were grouped using the following two models: Model 1 discretized CRP group with 33.33% and 66.66% as the critical values and Model 2 with 1.0 and 3.0mg/L as the cut off values.Results There were significant differences in serum CRP levels between the two groups (5.763.45 vs. 3.492.44mg/L, respectively; p<0.001), and compared with the first CRP tertile, the risks of poor CCC were higher in the second and third CRP tertiles (OR 2.31, 95%CI [1.67-3.19], OR 6.25, 95%CI [4.52-8.62], respectively). The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis indicated that the optimal cutoff value of CRP to predict poor CCC was 4.21mg/L with 59.6% sensitivity and 74.33% specificity.Conclusions CRP levels are an independent predictor for poor CCC and might supply a useful biomarker in clinical applications.