Edited by: Eugene Russo
P.M. Ridker, M. Cushman, M.J. Stampfer, R.P. Tracy, C.H. Hennekens, "Inflammation, aspirin, and the risk of cardiovascular disease in apparently healthy men," New England Journal of Medicine, 336:973-9, April 3, 1997. (Cited in more than 250 papers since publication)
Comments by Paul M. Ridker, associate professor of medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston
Physicians typically check patients for signs of cardiovascular disease, or atherosclerosis, by measuring cholesterol levels and taking blood pressure. But research of the last couple of years suggests that doctors might also do well to deduce susceptibility based on a patient's degree of vascular inflammation. This paper was the first major study to demonstrate the potential importance of assessing heart disease risk by measuring a patient's levels of high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), a marker of vascular inflammation. Although prior basic research had indicated that inflammation contributes to atherosclerosis onset--monocytes and macrophages, both ...
