Background-An elevated plasma concentration of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) is a strong predictor of cardiovascular events. However, there have been no longitudinal studies of the relations between development of atherosclerotic lesions and hs-CRP concentrations. Furthermore, it remains unknown whether increased hs-CRP concentrations result in the development of atherosclerosis. Methods and Results-The study included 179 outpatients 40 to 79 years of age who were treated at our institute for traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The patients had no evidence of advanced carotid atherosclerosis at the time of baseline examination. Patients underwent repeated ultrasonographic evaluation of the carotid arteries for 35Ϯ10 months. Blood samples were collected for hs-CRP measurements. Based on focal intima-media thickening Ն1.1 mm representing plaque, plaque number (PN) and plaque score (PS; the sum of all plaque thicknesses) were calculated. The development of atherosclerosis was estimated by the formula ⌬value/yearϭ(last valueϪbaseline value)/number of follow-up years. Multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that the log-transformed value for hs-CRP concentration was not related to baseline PN or PS but was related to ⌬PN/year and ⌬PS/year (ϭ0.29 and 0.30; PϽ0.001 for both) independently of the effect of traditional risk factors. Conclusions-During the early stages of carotid atherosclerosis, the hs-CRP concentration is a marker of carotid atherosclerotic activity rather than extent of atherosclerosis.
able in borderline cases. The routine use of other biomarker assays, such as HFABP in conjunction with tGST activity, could provide complementary information on the potential allograft "viability". This is illustrated by the fact that there was better segregation of donor categories (controlled vs uncontrolled) with HFABP than with tGST activity. This finding therefore warrants continued evaluation.
Background: We previously reported the development of a fully automated assay for total iron-binding capacity (TIBC) in serum, using a multipurpose automated analyzer. However, this method requires four different reagents and is thus useful only with a limited number of available analyzers. We simplified our original assay and compared the analytical performance of the modified method with that of a commercial, fully automated TIBC assay (Dimension® TIBC assay).
Methods: We simplified our original method to require only three reagents. Calibration was also altered and was performed with human transferrin standard solutions. An advantage of this method is that it does not require separation of excess unbound iron after the first step of transferrin saturation. Unbound iron is eliminated by formation of a complex with the chromogenic reagent ferrozine in the second step. Iron dissociated from transferrin by acidic pH reacts with ferrozine to form a colored complex in the final step, and the increase in absorbance at 570/660 nm is directly proportional to the TIBC measured. TIBC values were determined for 49 healthy individuals and 148 patients with this modified TIBC assay and with a commercial, fully automated TIBC method (Dimension clinical chemistry system), and calculation of TIBC based on the sum of the serum iron and unsaturated iron-binding capacity was performed for 97 patients.
Results: The within-run CVs for the modified TIBC assay and the Dimension TIBC assay were <4.8% and <2.4%, and the between-run CVs were 1.2% and 1.7%, respectively. The dilution curves were linear for TIBC values up to at least 180 μmol/L with both methods. TIBC values obtained by our method were linearly correlated with serum transferrin concentrations (r = 0.984; Sy|x = 3.18 μmol/L; P <0.001). The correlation between the values obtained with the present method (y) and those obtained with the Dimension TIBC method (x) was y = 1.04x + 1.19 μmol/L (r = 0.985; Sy|x = 2.47 μmol/L), and with the calculation method (x) was y = 1.18x + 2.62 μmol/L (r = 0.976; Sy|x = 3.27 μmol/L).
Conclusions: Our modified, fully automated TIBC assay performed similarly to the Dimension TIBC assay and is adaptable for use with many multipurpose automated analyzers.
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