New Way to determine if you are having heart attack

Shah and colleagues prospectively evaluated the negative predictive value (the probability that patients were not at risk) of heart attack or subsequent death from a heart condition after 30 days for a range of troponin concentrations.

“The evidence shows you can quickly and confidently rule out a heart attack without compromising patient safety”, added Pearson.

Scientists believe that the test can also pinpoint whether a person will have a heart attack within the month, according to the Irish Examiner.

Global guidelines recommend that individuals presenting with chest pain should be admitted to the hospital to be tested for very high levels of troponin (above the 99th percentile) to affirm that a heart attack has occurred.

Researchers said they had identified the optimal level of a protein called troponin in the blood below which a heart attack can be all but ruled out as the cause of chest pain.

‘We want to ensure no heart attack diagnosis is missed but we equally don’t want to see people go through unnecessary tests and spend extended periods in hospital unless it is essential…

Over one million people in the United Kingdom are rushed to emergency rooms annually due to stabbing pains in their chest, but most of the cases are not severe.

The test used in this study is more sensitive than the standard version and can detect far lower levels of troponin in the blood.

A low concentration of troponin indicates that this is not a heart attack, which means the patient does not need emergency admission, tests and interventions – and could potentially be cared for at home. Over the last two decades, a triple-fold increase has been witnessed in the number of hospital admissions owing to chest pain. “These findings could dramatically reduce unnecessary hospital admissions and provide substantial cost savings”.

The investigators found that 61 percent of the patients with a troponin level below 5 ng/L were at very low risk of Michigan and could have been discharged early, regardless of age, gender, and risk factors for cardiovascular disease. To do this, patients must be admitted to the hospital or wait for a long time in the emergency department for repeat testing.