C-reactive protein gene polymorphisms and the incidence of post-angioplasty restenosis.

Recent findings have demonstrated that plasma C-reactive protein levels predict restenosis after coronary angioplasty. Furthermore, C-reactive protein levels have also been shown to be heritable. However, no genetic-epidemiological data are available on the relationship between genetic variants of C-reactive protein (CRP) gene and risk of restenosis after angioplasty. The present study was carried out to examine the possible association of a non-sense exonic 1059G > C and an intronic T > A C-reactive protein gene polymorphisms in a large, previously described, well-characterized cohort of 779 post-angioplasty patients of whom 342 subjects developed restenosis. Genotype distributions were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Genotype and allele distributions were similar between cases and controls. Haplotype frequency distributions were also similar between cases and controls. Further investigation using a haplotype-based logistic and linear regression analyses, adjusting for potential confounders, yielded similar null results. In conclusion, we found no evidence for an association between the polymorphisms/haplotypes thereof tested and restenosis after angioplasty.