Plasma procalcitonin and the risk of cardiovascular events and death: a prospective population-based study.
Objectives: A number of inflammatory biomarkers such as C reactive protein (CRP) are independent predictors of cardiovascular risk. The inflammatory biomarker procalcitonin (PCT) has previously been shown to be associated with coronary atherosclerosis and the metabolic syndrome. We evaluated the ability of PCT to predict future cardiovascular events in a population of apparently healthy individual