Creatine Kinase - Laboratory Testing

Laboratory Testing

CK is often determined routinely in a medical laboratory. It is also determined specifically in patients with chest pain or if acute renal failure is suspected. Normal values are usually between 60 and 400 IU/L, where one unit is enzyme activity, more specifically the amount of enzyme that will catalyze 1 μmol of substrate per minute under specified conditions (temperature, pH, substrate concentrations and activators. This test is not specific for the type of CK that is elevated.

Elevation of CK is an indication of damage to muscle. It is therefore indicative of injury, rhabdomyolysis, myocardial infarction, myositis and myocarditis. The use of statin medications, which are commonly used to decrease serum cholesterol levels, may be associated with elevation of the CPK level in about 1% of the patients taking these medications, and with actual muscle damage in a much smaller proportion.

There is an inverse relationship in the serum levels of T3 and CK in thyroid disease. In hypothyroid patients, with decrease in serum T3 there is a significant increase in CK. Therefore, the estimation of serum CK is considered valuable in screening for hypothyroid patients.

Lowered CK can be an indication of alcoholic liver disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

Isoenzyme determination has been used extensively as an indication for myocardial damage in heart attacks. Troponin measurement has largely replaced this in many hospitals, although some centers still rely on CK-MB.