Potential Cancer Predictor Found

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University have found that a protein used to predict heart disease may also be a warning sign for colon cancer.

High levels of C-reactive protein, or CRP, in a patient’s blood “could become a very good early marker” for predicting the colon disorder, said Northwestern University cancer specialist Dr. Boris Pasche.

The finding also bolsters the theory that inflammation plays a role in some cancers, as well as a host of other chronic ailments, including heart disease and diabetes.

The Hopkins researchers, who are publishing their report today in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., analyzed blood samples from a long-term study of people in Washington County, Md.

They compared 131 subjects who developed colon cancer with 262 people who did not. “People with high levels of CRP had a significantly higher risk of developing colon cancer sometime in the future,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Thomas Erlinger, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health.