[Value of C-reactive protein in the cardiac postoperative period]

Twenty patients underwent special clinical and biological monitoring during their period of hospitalisation in the Department of cardiovascular surgery. The clinical monitoring concentrated on the patient's temperature and the search for postoperative complications; the biological part of the study was concerned with monitoring the levels of serum C-Reactive protein (CRP) as assessed by an immuno-nephelometric method. In 10 patients with a normal postoperative course the levels of this protein, an indicator of an inflammatory or infective process, were similar, giving an identical graph in all patients. On the other hand, in the 10 patients with inflammatory or infective postoperative complications, the levels of CRP were abnormal, parallel with the clinical state, sometimes rising even before the complication manifested itself clinically. It therefore seems useful and justified to measure CRP systematically, once before surgery and at least once daily in the postoperative period. The frequency of this investigation could be increased in patients with difficult or complex postoperative courses. A high CRP, even with a normal temperature, should alert the surgeon to a complication or to the inefficacy of anti-inflammatory or anti-infective therapy. These results confirm those published by other surgical teams, both in cardiovascular surgery and traumatology.