A widely anticipated study will be released Sunday morning at the American Heart Association meeting that will show whether AstraZeneca’s cholesterol pill can reduce inflamed arteries. Positive results could double sales to more than $6 billion, according to some Wall Street estimates. Although, a little debate about the need for a $25 blood test may still have to be settled.

The test would measure levels of a protein linked to inflammation called CRP, which can indicate arteries are inflamed and point toward heart disease. This was the measurement used in the Crestor study. But the CRP test isn’t widely used now because doctors disagree about who should get it and whether the results are consistent enough to guide care, Bloomberg News writes.

“There will continue to be a debate over whether CRP levels should be routinely measured or not,” Thomas Wang, an assistance professor at Harvard Medical School, tells the news service. “Day to day, your levels of CRP may change and it may change substantially. Once you put the person on the drug, you’re likely to have them on it indefinitely.”

The Crestor study was designed to determine whether the pill could lower deaths and heart attacks in people with high CRP and normal cholesterol. And by the way, since Jupiter’s test population is 40 percent women, it is likely to be the first study to prove statins prevent first heart attacks in both sexes (translation: more sales). In a research note, Credit Suisse analyst Catherine Arnold suggests positive results will cause a “class-effect spillover benefit potentially helping other brands” of statins.

Meanwhile, one wag says taking a statin other than Crestor may be prudent if the Jupiter results are positive. “If CRP is a legitimate marker of heart disease, people with a high CRP level who are given another statin may also have some benefit,” Sid Wolfe, who heads Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, tells Bloomberg. “No one should look at this study and say it’s worth paying three or five times more for Crestor than for another statin.”

Public Citizen called in 2004 for Crestor to be withdrawn from the US because of the risk of kidney and muscle damage. While the concerns about its safety haven’t been confirmed, the possibility has shadowed the pill since it was introduced in 2003. The Jupiter trial was also devised to assess the drug’s safety, Bloomberg notes.

Still, some docs says the study results may be used determine care for borderline people, rather than open a new category of patient. “If people have another risk factor besides just age, then doctors might be inclined to use CRP as a tie breaker,” Roger Blumenthal, director of the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Preventive Cardiology Center, tells Bloomberg. “I’m sure a lot of patients that I see and internists who are just not sure whether to commit someone to lifelong statin therapy, on the basis of this study will consider getting CRP.”