Liver Cirrhosis Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Liver Cirrhosis, including details on alcohol, treatment, drugs, effects, causes.

Production of C-reactive protein in Escherichia coli-infected patients with liver dysfunction due to liver cirrhosis.

Park WB, Lee KD, Lee CS, Jang HC, Kim HB, Lee HS, Oh MD, Choe KW

Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 110-744, Republic of Korea.

To assess the effect of liver dysfunction on the production of C-reactive protein (CRP), CRP levels were evaluated in patients with Escherichia coli bacteremia with or without liver cirrhosis (LC). Thirty patients of each kind were selected as case and control groups, respectively. A matched control of 30 LC patients without acute infection was also included. In the patients with E. coli bacteremia, median CRP was 6.2 mg/dL (range 0.2-22.1) in the LC patients and 14.6 mg/dL (range 5.8-39.6) in the patients without liver dysfunction (P < 0.001). In the advanced LC patients in Child-Pugh class C, median CRP was 5.0 mg/dL (range 0.2-12.1) in patients with E. coli bacteremia and 0.5 mg/dL (range 0.1-1.2) in patients without acute infection (P < 0.001). Our data suggest that, although CRP levels are reduced in response to acute infection, production is nevertheless maintained even in patients with advanced liver dysfunction.

Published 5 April 2005 in Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis, 51(4): 227-30.
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