High-sensitivity C reactive protein and risk of cardiovascular disease in China-CVD study

Background This study aimed to assess the association of high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) with cardiovascular disease (CVD) in middle-aged Chinese population. Methods The baseline was collected 2009-2010, and follow-up was conducted in 2016-2017. Data of hs-CRP were from baseline examination and re-examination in 2016-2017 using transmission turbidimetry with a measurement range of 0-42 000. The primary outcome was CVD including coronary heart disease events and stroke events. Results Among 8688 participants free from CVD (at baseline, mean age, 50.1 years, 3897 were males), there were 189 CVD events, occurred during a median follow-up of 6.34 years (54 685 person-years at risk). From the Kaplan-Meier curve, we found that there was a progressive increase in CVD event rates by hs-CRP tertiles (log-rank test, p<0.001). Baseline hs-CRP was linearly associated with CVD (p for trend=0.015) even after adjusting for known CVD risk factors. Furthermore, the net reclassification improvement when hs-CRP was added to a model based on traditional factors was 7.85% for CVD (p=0.003). In addition, the correlation between change of hs-CRP and CVD was conducted in a subgroup (n=4778). However, we did not find the correlation between hs-CRP change and CVD (correlation coefficient: -0.003, p=0.846). Conclusions In the middle-aged Chinese population, hs-CRP was associated with increased risk of developing CVD. Although there was no correlation between hs-CRP change and CVD, the level of hs-CRP was higher at follow-up than baseline even among those with CVD. More attention should be given to those with higher level of hs-CRP for CVD prevention.