Diagnostic Role of High-Sensitivity Cardiac Troponin T in Acute Myocardial Infarction and Cardiac Noncoronary Artery Disease.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Currently, the distinction between AMI and cardiac noncoronary artery disease (CNCD) remains a challenge in clinical practice. Our aim was to evaluate the diagnostic role of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) level at presentation and its change within the first hour to distinguish AMI from CNCD. METHODS: hs-cTnT was measured at presentation and after 1 h in 110 consecutive Chinese patients with symptoms suggestive of AMI within 12 h from symptom onset. Receiver-operating characteristics (ROC) analysis was used to estimate the diagnostic accuracy of hs-cTnT. RESULTS: Patients with AMI had higher presentation values of hs-cTnT and higher absolute changes in the first h than patients with CNCD. The diagnostic accuracy of hs-cTnT at presentation for the distinction between patients with AMI and CNCD as quantified by the area under the receiver-operating characteristics curve (AUC) was 0.88. The discriminatory power of Δhs-cTnT 0-1 h was higher for absolute (AUC, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.83-0.94) compared to relative (AUC, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.60-0.73) changes. Combining presentation values of hs-cTnT at presentation with absolute changes in the first h increased the AUC to 0.93 (p < 0.001 for comparison with AUC of 0 h hs-cTnT). CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our results suggest that the combined use of presentation values of hs-cTnT and its absolute change in the first hour discriminates well between patients with AMI and CNCD, further confirming the role of hs-cTnT as a biomarker for the early diagnosis of AMI.