This reinforces the broadly accepted idea that atherosclerosis acts as an inflammatory stimulus, a concept supported by the finding of augmented CRP levels in a subgroup of our CABG patients (3.4 ± 1.67 mg/l), In the intragroup analysis we found that only dyslipidemia had a significant effect on CD34+/CD144+ numbers in CABG patients (Table 3). The gene discussed is CRP; the disease is atherosclerosis.