AboutNeha Dahiya MD Expertise I can help patients understand their lab report results, help them with queries regarding what pretest preparation is required. How often a follow up test needs to be done. What does a particular tissue biopsy report mean in everyday English. I can explain the biopsy or cytology procedure. I can deal with Histopathology / cytology / clinical pathology and clinical chemistry queries. Helping in this manner will be my contribution to the community.
Experience I am a pathologist and director of clinical laboratory services. I have been a practicing pathologist for last 9 years in a 350 bed multi specialty hospital laboratory.
Organizations Indian association of pathologists and microbiologists.
MIAC - Member International Academy of Cytology
International association of Pathologists - indian division
Indian association of Cytology
Question I have read that elevated hs-crp can be an indicator of cardiac risk, but I had mine drawn for an ortho consult due to bilateral knee pain, instability, following an MRI that showed a baker cyst (right knee), medial meniscus fraying (both knees) and fluid build up behind the knee cap(left knee) The hs-crp was 6.12, my WBC were 11.9H, my monocytes were very high (I do not recall the exact #) and leukocytes were elevated. Should I just take the results as they pertain to inflammation in my knees, or should I try to find out if I have an infection, high risk for cardiac event, or anything else. It seems that the elevations can all be due to my knee injuries, but I am concerned about cardiac health as well, as I had viral pericarditis about 3 months ago.
Answer Hello Jolene:
hs CRP is indeed used as a marker for assessing the risk of cardiac disease. However it has to be interpreted in combination with other indicators required to assess the risk like - lipid profile (raised cholesterol and triglycerides), high blood pressure, history of smoking etc.
Since you have inflammation in the joints this raised CRP becomes a false indicator of risk for cardiac disease.
Basically hs CRP is a marker for inflammation and is raised in any form of tissue injury.
you should wait for the knee pathology to subside and heal and then repeat the hs CRP
