Home or Hospital? Point-of-Care CRP as a Triage Biomarker in the Primary Care Setting.

Abstract

C-reactive protein (CRP)2 is an acute-phase reactant synthesized in the liver in response to proinflammatory signals such as interleukin-6. This biomarker is routinely used to evaluate systemic inflammatory processes, monitor response to antibiotic treatment, and for the detection of intercurrent infections. In these conditions, CRP concentrations rise rapidly and considerably (i.e., >10 mg/L). Measurement of low concentrations of CRP (between <0.3 and 0 mg/L), using high-sensitivity CRP assays, has been demonstrated to be useful for the assessment of cardiovascular disease/event risk. There are no CRP assays cleared with a waived status in the US at the time of this publication. The measurement of CRP at the point of care (POC) has been evaluated primarily in Europe as a tool to …