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Updated: Dec 8, 2025
Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate: A Physics-Driven Characterization in a Medical Context
Published on: March 24, 2023
The Usefulness of the Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate and C-reactive Protein for the Differential Diagnosis of
Dafna Yaacobi Shilo1, Einor Ben Assayag2, Shlomo Berliner3
1Department of Plastic Surgery & Burns, Rabin Medical Center, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Purpose:
The presence of a microinflammatory response is one of the possible pathological mechanisms related to the development of nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAAION), a common cause of optic neuropathy in old age.We tested whether individuals with NAAION harbor a heightened microinflammatory response compared to controls.
Methods:
We measured the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) in NAAION patients during hospital admission and in four matched controls for each patient, retrieved from a large cohort of 20,000 apparently healthy individuals.
Results:
We included 128 NAAION patients and 512 controls. No significant differences were found between patients and controls regarding the inflammatory biomarkers.
Conclusions:
This is the first report showing a lack of difference in ESR and hs-CRP levels between NAAION patients and matched controls, suggesting NAAION is not associated with a heightened inflammatory response, such as the one associated with multiple atherothrombotic risk factors.
