Blood test detects heart attack risk

Researchers have found a way to cut down the amount of time it takes to rule out heart attack...
Researchers have found a way to cut down the amount of time it takes to rule out heart attack risk, through a bedside blood test that can be performed in emergency departments. Photo: Getty Images

A new test trialled in New Zealand could tell doctors in just 15 minutes whether a patient is at risk of suffering a heart attack.

Heart disease remains our country's biggest killer. On average, one New Zealander succumbs to it every 15 minutes and health authorities expect rates to climb over coming decades.

Now, researchers have found a way to cut down the amount of time it takes to rule out heart attack risk, through a bedside blood test that can be performed in emergency departments.

One of the lead authors of a just-published paper describing the test, Associate Prof John Pickering, said the development could make a big difference.

When a patient came into an ED with symptoms that suggested a potential heart attack, current laboratory blood-testing procedures could take one to two hours to reveal the risk level.

Another senior author, CDHB emergency medicine specialist Dr Martin Than, said current point-of-care tests could lack the precision of the new method, which was centred around a measurement of a protein in the blood called cardiac troponin.

The observational study, conducted between 2016 and 2017, at Christchurch Hospital, included about 350 patients with symptoms of a heart attack.

So far, testing had shown that close to half could have the risk of heart attack safely excluded soon after arrival at the ED. 

 

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