New troponin tests compared with new GPBB cardiac Essen, September 2009 – short before the Congress of the European society of Cardiology (ESC) in Barcelona, was a study of a new generation of Troponin tests to detect heart attacks for attention. Initial situation: very many suspected cases, only a few confirm troponin tests are used worldwide for more than ten years by doctors for the diagnosis of heart attacks. Crucial drawback of known to be very time-critical treatment of heart attack is very late detection of the attack at troponin. First, many patients in the emergency room with so-called breast pain, the classic symptom of heart attack, be hospitalized, of which only a small proportion actually has a heart attack. The doctors are so constantly faced with the question, who should be treated quickly and extensively, and in which patients it is necessary at first or not at all.
Previous troponin test systems typically need to at the beginning of the classic symptom Approximately four to six hours pass chest pain (chest pain onset), until a diagnosis with the classic troponin is possible. The clock, which determines how much tissue in the heart is finally irretrievably lost, so dies ticking but from the onset of this pain. However, the high specificity of the heart, which could assure that any positive value of Troponin in cardiac patients documented an actually affected patients spoke for the relatively long needed time for troponin measurement. The new generation of faster, more sensitive troponin tests: Only faster or better? The new generation promises a faster diagnosis. The former period up to the first test results was as mentioned between four and six hours and can be reduced with the new, more sensitive markers for three hours. The reduction in time but also has drawbacks. The new troponin tests partially leads to problems in the accuracy of the diagnosis and reduce the value of existing, high specificity as a result.