Loading...
Investigators evaluated the diagnostic performance of a new high-sensitivity troponin T (hsTnT) assay in 377 patients with chest pain and low-to-intermediate risk for acute coronary syndromes (ACS) who presented to a high-volume emergency department in Boston. All patients received usual initial care and underwent coronary angiography, at which time blood was drawn for a single hsTnT assay (median time from presentation to sampling, 4.2 hours). Patients were followed for 6 months, and final diagnoses were assigned by two physicians who were blinded to the hsTnT results.
The investigators used a troponin level of 13 pg/mL (the 99th percentile in a normal reference population) as the diagnostic threshold. Overall, 16.4% of patients had hsTnT l…