Blood test breakthrough could rule out heart attacks
There will be occasions when symptoms of chest pain and ECG are not enough to confirm a heart attack.
A simple blood test could rule out heart attacks in patients complaining of chest pain and “dramatically” reduce unnecessary admissions to hospital, scientists have found. At the same time, they didn’t want to see patients undergo unnecessary and complex tests that extend their time inside hospitals, unless it was absolutely essential. Lead authors from the study say that use of the test in routine practice could save patients from spending many hours in the emergency department. “If Troponin levels are low, then the risk of a heart episode even for the next 30 days and quite often up to six months is less”.
In the United Kingdom, around 1 million people visit emergency departments as a result of chest pain.
“We have identified a cardiac troponin concentration ( 5 ng/L) below which patients are at very low risk of heart attack either during the admission or in the ensuing 30 days”, Shah said in a journal news release.
What happens when the ECG fails to detect a heart attack while you are being wheeled into the emergency of a hospital with chest pain?
The 30-minute troponin test, which costs £5 or about $8, could possibly prevent around 400,000 people from being admitted at hospitals.
Scientists hope that the current testing procedure will now be altered, and that the highly-sensitive troponin test will soon be used everywhere in the UK.
“Our study shows that low heart troponin concentrations identify up to two-thirds of patients who are at very low risk of heart attack and could be safely discharged”, Dr. Anoop Shah, a clinical research fellow at the University of Edinburgh, said in a press release.
(Reuters Health) is that A fresh blood stream test may help medical professionals determine out quicker no matter someone’s having a heart attack.
“A faster, more accurate diagnosis of whether chest pain is caused by a heart attack would be better for patients”, Jeremy Pearson, a professor at the British Heart Foundation, told the BBC.