title: Serum cardiac troponin T concentrations in hospitalized patients without acute myocardial infarction.
abstract: The present study was designed to determine whether the measurement of serum levels of cardiac troponin T (cTnT) would establish the presence of myocardial injury in 79 patients, within 12 h of hospitalization, whose admission and final discharge diagnosis were not related to myocardial infarction. Independent classification by clinicians resulted in 35 (44%) patients characterized as having unsuspected myocardial injury and 44 (56%) without myocardial injury. Increased serum cTnT identified 94% of myocardial injury patients, compared to increased serum creatine kinase MB (CK-MB) mass which identified 69%. Negative serum cTnT and CK-MB concentrations respectively excluded 73 and 50% of patients evidently without myocardial injury, respectively. A total of 12 patients, 9 with and 3 without elevated CK-MB concentration, had unexplained cTnT elevations. While our findings show cardiac troponin T to be more efficient than CK-MB in determining and excluding myocardial injury, even in a randomly selected population with a very high probability, unexplained elevations of cardiac troponin T question its role as an absolute cardiospecific marker.
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine, Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415, USA.
authors.forename: F S
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Apple
authors.forename: A H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Valdes
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood*; D003402:Creatine Kinase / Q000097:blood; D004452:Echocardiography; D004562:Electrocardiography; D006801:Humans; D007527:Isoenzymes; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000097:blood*; D009206:Myocardium / Q000378:metabolism*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014336:Troponin / Q000097:blood*; D020107:Troponin T
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D007527:Isoenzymes; D014336:Troponin; D020107:Troponin T; D003402:Creatine Kinase