Marker of heart disease may also raise cancer risk

March 20, 2009

WASHINGTON - A protein that signals inflammation and heart disease may also show that a person has a high risk of cancer, researchers said yesterday.

People with high levels of C-reactive protein, or CRP - already being studied for its links to heart disease - had a 30-percent-higher risk of cancer, Danish researchers found. And cancer patients with the highest CRP levels were 80 percent more likely to die early, they found.

"These findings are preliminary and more research is needed to determine a precise link between CRP levels and cancer," said Dr. Eric Winer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School.

"However, these findings support a possible link between inflammation and cancer, and the C-reactive protein test could one day be used to help select those patients who should be more frequently screened for cancer," Winer added.

Dr. Kristine Allin and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen studied more than 10,000 people who had their CRP levels measured and then were followed for 16 years.

About 1,600 developed cancer over this time, and if they had high CRP levels at the beginning of the study, they were 30 percent more likely to be in this group of cancer patients.