Troponin is a cardiac protein which is released into the blood when heart muscle has been damaged. It takes 10-12 hours for troponin to rise after a cardiac event. Therefore, 2 tests need to be done 10-12 hours apart to see if there is a change in troponin levels. If there is a significant rise, the patient can be diagnosed as having a cardiac event rather than their symptoms being due to a non-cardiac cause.
The patient will have to stay in hospital while these tests are done.
Also, regular troponin levels can be raised by other conditions such as:
High sensitivity troponin is able to pick up lower levels of troponin in blood and see changes in troponin levels sooner. Is also a very good negative indicator - if high sensitivity troponin isn't raised, you know the patient isn't having a cardiac event, whereas if it is raised, 1:200 will have actually had an MI. Therefore, this still is not a very accurate test. So if the patient has ongoing chest pain or your clinical suspicion of MI is high, but their troponin isn't raised, don't rule out MI as a diagnosis.
This decreases the patients stay in hospital as if there is no change patient can go home.
Not available at Rural General Hospitals, is available at Raigmore.