85% of Heart Attacks Could Go Undetected Without Simple Blood Test, Study Finds

Without administering a blood test for troponin in the first few days after surgery, 85 percent of the heart attacks or injuries that patients suffer could be missed, according to a study in an upcoming issue of Anesthesiology, the journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

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In the study, more than 15,000 patients older than 45 years and having non-cardiac surgery, were administered a simple blood test some time during the first three days after surgery to measure troponin — a protein specific to the heart that is released into the blood when the heart muscle is injured.

The study found that only 15 percent of patients who suffered heart attacks or injury after surgery experienced chest pain or other heart attack symptoms. Without the test, 85 percent of those who suffered heart attacks or injury would have gone undetected.

“The ease and feasibility of the test to detect heart injury point to tremendous opportunities for designing clinical studies to test novel interventions for attenuation of myocardial injury and perioperative mortality,” noted Karsten Bartels, assistant professor in the department of anesthesiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver, in an accompanying editorial.

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