C-reactive protein not a useful marker for osteoarthritis

By Martin March, | Health | 0 Comments

Levels of C-reactive protein say more about a patient’s weight than about their risk of osteoarthritis.
Around 70 per cent of Americans over the age of 65 have some degree of osteoarthritis, a degenerative disease of the cartilage within the joints. It’s commonly diagnosed using X-rays, but this is limited because only bone, and not the cartilage, is imaged. So researchers had been hoping for some alternative method of diagnosis.

A team at Duke University has been looking at the role of C-reactive protein (CRP) in predicting osteoarthritis. CRP is a ‘marker’ for inflammation and raised levels have already been implicated in heart disease. However, when CRP was measured in a group of 670 patients and correlated with X-ray results, the researchers felt it was not a useful indicator of arthritis. This is because CRP seems to say more about a patient’s body mass index than the state of their joints. However, it may be that CRP levels can reveal how well arthritis patients respond to therapy. Levels go down when people exercise. It’s possible that those who are prescribed exercise to deal with their arthritis could be monitored through measurement of CRP levels – if these go down, then the therapy could be having a positive effect.