Erythrocyte sedimentation rate

Useful for

Useful when a rheumatic inflammatory disease is suspected, for example with stiffness and pain in the shoulders and hips at an older age or with new headache and pain when chewing over the age of 50, and to follow the course of such a disease. When an acute infection is suspected, CRP is more suitable. In adults without symptoms, routine measurement is not useful: a slightly raised value is then usually harmless and a normal value rules out little.

How common is it?

Polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis, the inflammatory diseases for which the ESR is used most, occur almost only in people over 50 and about twice as often in women as in men. A slightly raised sedimentation rate without disease, on the other hand, is very common, especially in older people and women.

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Drawbacks and risks

• A slightly raised ESR without symptoms is usually harmless, but often leads to follow-up tests that find nothing.
• In older people and women the normal value is higher; using the general limit wrongly shows an abnormality.