Current smoker Ex-smoker Never ever smoker Sort 2 diabetes Hypertension Dyslipidemia 1st cholesterol value (mmol/L) History of renal failure Serum creatinine (mmol/L) Urinary albumin/creatinine ratio History of heart failure LV ejection fraction ( ) Duration CAD (years) Stroke/TIA Peripheral arterial disease Ankle/brachial index Medicines Lipid-lowering drugs Angiotensin modulators Beta-blockers Aspirin/antiplatelet drugs65.668.4* 88 (22){ 29.964.1 52 (13) 103.7610.7 28 (7) 60 (15) 12 (3) 32 (8) 80 (20) 100 (25) 3.8160.94 8 (2) 89.2624.6 25.7633.5 32 (8) 46612 19.0610.1 4 (1) 20 (5) 1.160.96 (24) 72 (18) 88 (22) 96 (24)96 (24) 44 (11) 68 (17) 100 (25)92 (23) 36 (9) 72 (18) 96 (24)40 (10) 8 (2) 28 (7) 44 (11)*6 refers to standard deviation values; { numbers of subjects in parentheses; MI = myocardial infarction; CAD = coronary artery disease; BMI = body mass index; LV = left ventricular; TIA = transient ischemic attack. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060759.tdischarge summaries of patients hospitalized with a diagnosis of MI or unstable angina in the preceding 5 years and by scanning the notes of consecutive patients at the cardiac outpatient clinic or undergoing coronary angiography between 2005 and 2008. At the time of first blood sampling, there had to be no ongoing or recent (,1 month) inflammatory/infectious disease, no surgical procedure or angioplasty in the preceding 3 months and no angiography in the preceding month. This study complies with the Declaration of Helsinki. It was approved by the hospital ethics committee (`Comite d’ethique de la recherche de l’Institut universitaire de cardiologie et de pneumologie de Quebec’) and each participant gave written informed consent.Study ProceduresAfter recruitment, subjects had fasting baseline blood tests, including CRP. A schedule of subsequent blood measurement dates was adapted to each subject’s availability. At each visit, subjects underwent a detailed structured questionnaire and drug history whose object was to determine any events or factors that could impact on inflammatory status to minimize any systematicPLOS ONE | www.plosone.orgvariability in CRP. Three blood samples for measuring CRP were collected during a single day at 6 hour intervals. In addition, there were: 1) 5 daily blood samples on consecutive days; 2) 4 consecutive weekly samples; 3) 4 consecutive monthly samples; and 4) tri-monthly samples to complete the year. Blood sampling at any single time could count more than once in these determinations of diurnal, daily, weekly, monthly and tri-monthly variability so that the 21 measuring time-points were covered by 15 blood samples.3-Aminobenzamide Blood samples were centrifuged, distributed in appropriate aliquots and frozen at 280uC.Imatinib After the last blood sample was collected in the last subject, all CRP measurements were performed simultaneously.PMID:24563649 CRP was measured in heparinized plasma with the N High Sensitivity CRP assay (inter-assay reproducibility 4.7 , assay range 0.18100 mg/L, sensitivity 0.18 mg/L) using the Behring ProSpec Nephelometer Analyzer (Siemens Healthcare Diagnosis, Deerfield, IL). If any study subject had a significant inflammatory event like fever or a hospitalization on the designated blood sampling day that could impact on CRP values, blood sampling was either delayed or cancelled, depending on whether the required measurement could or could not be performed with respect toCRP VariabilityFigure 1. Display of all CRP values of subjects with re.