A group of scientists from the United Kingdom recently discovered that a new blood test can assess whether a person experiencing chest pain is at risk of a heart attack.
Over one million people in the UK are rushed to emergency rooms annually due to stabbing pains in their chest, but most of the cases are not severe.
In the study published in the journal The Lancet, researchers from the University of Edinburgh found that low levels of troponin found in the blood can indicate that a heart attack is unlikely to occur. Troponin is a protein produced when the heart muscles are damaged.
The researchers followed the progress of tested blood samples of around 6,000 patients confined to several hospitals in the United States and Scotland. The researchers discovered that 61 percent of the patients' blood contained less than 5 nanograms per deciliter of troponin. Low levels indicate that there was 99.6 percent possibility the patients were unlikely at risk of a heart attack.
The 30-minute troponin test, which costs £5 or about $8, could possibly prevent around 400,000 people from being admitted at hospitals.
"Over the last two decades the number of hospital admissions due to chest pain has tripled but the overwhelming majority of these patients do not have a heart attack," said Dr. Anoop Shah, lead researcher.
Professor Jeremy Pearson, British Heart Foundation associate medical director, believes that the test is cost-efficient for the National Health Service.
Pearson said that they wanted to ensure that no heart attack diagnosis is missed out. At the same time, they didn't want to see patients undergo unnecessary and complex tests that extend their time inside hospitals, unless it was absolutely essential.
"The evidence shows you can quickly and confidently rule out a heart attack without compromising patient safety," added Pearson.
The British Heart Foundation, which funded the study, is planning a wider trial of more than 26,000 patients to examine other impacts of using the troponin test.
Scientists hope that the current testing procedure will now be altered, and that the highly-sensitive troponin test will soon be used everywhere in the UK.
Photo: National Eye Institute | Flickr
