C-Reactive Protein (CRP) Lab Values

Inflammation in the body
- Appendicitis
- Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID)
- Crohn’s
- Ulcerative Colitis
- Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)
- Lupus (SLE – Systemic Lupus Erythematosus)

Evaluate:

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD)
- Cholesterol level – atherosclerosis

Normal Therapeutic Values:

Normal – <1.0 mg/L

Collection:

Serum separator tube

What would cause increased levels?

Increased=Inflammation

Bacterial Infection
Crohn’s Disease
Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Lupus
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)
Pregnancy – estrogen
Myocardial Infarction (MI)

What would cause decreased levels?

Decreased=resolving inflammation

Medications that reduce inflammation:

NSAIDs
Statins
Steroids

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Transcript

Hey everyone, Abby here with nursing.com. In this lesson, we’ll talk about C-reactive protein. The normal values, as well as a time to take this lab and what would cause it to be increased or decreased. Let’s get started.

C-reactive protein, abbreviated CRP is a protein that is made in the liver in response to inflammation. Doesn’t that look complex? Of course, this is computerized, but it’s a protein. It’s gonna have a lot to this molecule, right? This lab is used to measure CRP in the blood, and it’s really valuable, because CRP increases quickly and decreases quickly. So, we can tell a lot about inflammation from this lab value. Some times it would be clinically indicated to monitor or to evaluate and draw, is when inflammation is present in times like appendicitis, pelvic inflammatory disease, Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis, as well as rheumatoid and lupus. It also helps to evaluate the risk of developing coronary artery disease because the liver also produces cholesterol and cholesterol contributes to atherosclerosis, which causes coronary artery disease, if CRP is increased, it can very softly evaluate risk of development. For CAD. Normal values are going to be below one milligram per liter. Collection happens in a serum separator tube or gold top. When increased, there is inflammation in an increased lab value. So, we’re gonna see that in infection, autoimmune diseases, and also even during pregnancy, and during an MI. It will be decreased when the inflammation is resolving, or if medications are taken to reduce the inflammation, you know which those are right? Of course you do, with the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, statins, and of course, steroids.

C-reactive protein or CRP, again is one of the inflammatory markers. So, it’s drawn in the cases of inflammation. Less than one milligram per liter is a normal value, whereas when it’s increased, that’s going to be in the cases of autoimmune disease, MI and pregnancy, any bit of inflammation. It will be decreased when the inflammation has been resolved or it’s being worked on with anti-inflammatory medications.

You all did great on this lesson today. Now, this wraps it up. I hope that you have a great day and go out, be your best self and happy nursing.

References:

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Lab Values

The Lab Values Course will help you understand how to interpret some of the most common and most important laboratory values you might see in your patients. We’ll break them down by body system and help you understand how the numbers you see in the chart relate to what’s actually happening to your patient. We’ll even walk you through how to draw blood in the right order and how to easily document lab values on your patient.