History of diabetes mellitus is associated with elevated cardiac troponin I levels in patients with chest pain but no coronary heart disease.
BACKGROUND
The factors and the mechanism contributing to an increase in cardiac troponin I (cTnI) in patients with chest pain, at least one cardiovascular risk factor, and no evidence of coronary heart disease remains elusive.


METHODS
Excluding patients with acute coronary syndrome and chronic myocardial isch-emia, we selected 362 consecutive patients with normal coronary angiography or computed tomography coronary angiography results or lesions causing < 50% stenosis in any of the coronary arteries from January 2012 to June 2015. Using a cut-off value of 0.01 ng/mL, patients with cTnI levels ≥ 0.01 ng/mL (164 patients) were compared with those with cTnI levels < 0.01 ng/mL. Logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate associations between elevated cTnI and patient characteristics.


RESULTS
Other than history of diabetes mellitus (DM) (18.90% vs. 8.08%, p = 0.002), the characteristics of the patients with and without elevated cTnI levels were similar. History of DM predicted elevation of cTnI level (OR 3.34, 95% CI 1.55-7.20, p = 0.002) in logistic regression analysis.


CONCLUSIONS
In total, 45.30% of patients with chest pain had elevated cTnI levels with a mean level of 0.07 ± 0.10 ng/mL. History of DM rather than blood glucose level itself was associated with elevated cTnI levels, whereas female gender was protective against increases in cTnI levels.
Department of Cardiology, The Fifth People's Hospital, Chongqing, China. zonghelou2-2@163.com.
Bin
B
Zhong
Yazhu
Y
Wang
Guo
G
Zhang
D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D002637:Chest Pain / Q000097:blood* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D019210:Troponin I / Q000097:blood*
D015415:Biomarkers; D019210:Troponin I
cardiac troponin I; chest pain; diabetes mellitus; risk factors