The relationship between high sensitive C-Reactive proteinlevels and treatment response in patients withmajor depression

Objective: Many previous studies conducted about the levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) in patients with ajor depression presented contradictory results which ight be a result of limitations in measurement of serum levels of CRP. However,even minor alterations of CRP levels can be determined with using recently developed high sensitive CRP (hs-CRP) measurement method. Till now, there have not been any studies investigating for CRP levels in major depressive patients using hs-CRP method. The aim of this study was to determine serum hs-CRP levels in patients with major depression who were treated with various antidepressants and to compare with those of healthy controls. Methods: Twenty-three patients who are diagnosed clinically as major depression and 26 healthy controls were included in this study. The severity of the depression was quantified with 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D). Serum hs-CRP levels were measured before and after antidepressant treatment of eight weeks. Results: Serum hs-CRP levels were found as 0.75 ± 0.34 mg/dl and 0.76 ± 0.48 mg/dl before and after treatment respectively in major depression group. The difference was not statistically significant according to paired samples T test (p>0.05). The level of healthy group was 0.71 ± 0.49 mg/dl and the difference between control group and major depression group was also insignificant (p>0.05). Discussion: The results of this study showed that serum CRP levels in major depressive patients as measured with hs-CRP measurement method ? a 30 fold ore sensitive method for CRP serum levels than the methods used in previous studies-do not show any significant differences from healthy control group and do not change in quantity with various antidepressant treatments.