A CRP of 46 on a standard assay
| Where it fallsthe AHA/CDC hs-CRP risk bands and standard CRP reference ranges | Moderately raised |
|---|---|
| CRPon a standard assay | 46mg/L |
| Usual reference range | under 10mg/L |
| Normal | under 10mg/L |
| Mildly raised | 10 – 39mg/L |
| Moderately raisedthis reading | 40 – 99mg/L |
| Markedly raised | 100 and abovemg/L |
Notes
- One reading is not a diagnosis. CRP moves with any inflammation at all — infection, injury, surgery, autoimmune disease, obesity and smoking among them. A clinician reads it against your history and usually against a repeat, not on its own.
- Reference ranges differ between laboratories. The bands above follow the AHA/CDC hs-CRP risk bands and standard CRP reference ranges. Your own report prints the range its analyser was calibrated against, and that printed range is the one to compare against — a difference of a few units between labs is normal and does not mean either is wrong.
- There are two CRP tests and they answer different questions. The standard assay looks for infection and inflammation and reports in whole numbers up to the hundreds. The high-sensitivity assay measures the same protein far more precisely at the low end, and its 1 and 3 mg/L cut-offs are cardiovascular risk bands, not signs of illness. A standard result of 46 mg/L therefore has to be read against the assay it came from — the bands above assume the standard assay.
- Above about 10 mg/L the cardiovascular bands stop meaning anything, because ordinary inflammation swamps the signal. A cold, a recent dental procedure, a flare of arthritis or a workout can all put CRP there, which is why a raised hs-CRP is repeated a fortnight later before it is read as a risk marker.
- CRP tells you inflammation is present, never where. It rises within hours and falls within days, which makes it useful for tracking whether something is settling — and useless for saying what that something is.
What crp of 46 mg/L means
A reading of 46 mg/Lon a standard assay falls in Moderately raised by the AHA/CDC hs-CRP risk bands and standard CRP reference ranges.
The usual reference range is under 10 mg/L.
Reading it next to the rest of the picture
A single figure is a snapshot. What somebody experienced does with it is set by what sits around it — the other figures on the same report, the history behind them, and what the previous result was. Two people can hand over the same number and leave with different advice, and neither has been given the wrong answer.
That is also why the bands on this page are drawn from a named source rather than a rounded rule of thumb. A threshold is a decision point somebody argued for in print, not a law of nature, and knowing which document a line comes from is what lets you tell a meaningful result from a borderline one.
Nearby sizes
Read more
- CBC Normal Ranges — What Each Line on the Result MeansA value marked high or low on a CBC is common and is often not significant on its own. The pattern across lines is what a clinician reads.
- eGFR Normal Range: Above 90, and the Stages Below IteGFR is an estimate built from creatinine, age and sex — and the estimate is better than the raw creatinine it comes from, for a reason worth understanding.
- TSH Normal Range: 0.4–4.0 mIU/L, and the Number Moves BackwardsTSH runs opposite to the gland it measures. High TSH means the thyroid is underactive, and that inversion catches almost everyone reading their own result.
- Cholesterol Numbers: What Total, LDL, HDL and Triglycerides MeanA lipid panel reports four numbers and the one printed largest — total cholesterol — is the least useful of them.