Characterization of inflammatory syndrome in smokers, from C-Reactive protein and erythrocytes sedimentation rate measurements

A local inflammatory syndrome is characterized by a classic semiological tetrad: pain, swelling, redness and heat. These signs are easily observed when the inflammation concerns the skin or an adjacent tissue. Throughout this study, the aim was to characterize chronic inflammation in smokers using two parameters, rate of erythrocytes sedimentation (RES) and C – reactive protein (CRP). Our study was done on a sample of 35 smoking subjects, composed of men and women. The CRP measurement o was carried out using a CRP-Latex agglutination test which detects only serum CRP levels around 6mg/L. The technique used for the RES measurement is that of Westergreen. From the results, we observed that 31% of our sample presented a positive CRP and a high RES against 40% having regular CRP and RES. The gender of the subject did not play a role in the results obtained. On the other hand, a significant difference (p = 0.031) in CRP was observed between subjects with normal RES and those with high RES. Therefore, these results make it difficult to confirm that RES and CRP can be used as reliable markers for the characterization of inflammation linked to smoking. Published by the International Journal of Biomolecules and Biomedicine (IJBB