CRP and atherosclerosis: Despite a lack of specificity for the cause of inflammation, data from multiple epidemiologic studies have established an independent association between elevated serum or plasma concentrations of CRP and the prevalence of underlying atherosclerosis, the risk of recurrent ASCVD events, and the incidence of first events among individuals at risk for ASCVD (Figure 1).5 When applied in the general population, the incremental predictive information from CRP is quantitatively small.