European heart journal
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Differential diagnosis of patients who present with chest pain remains problematical. It has been shown that 11.8-7% of patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) are sent home from the emergency department (ED). Audit of our own ED has shown the incidence of missed prognostically significant myocardial damage to be 6.7%. ⋯ Improvements in diagnostic accuracy can reduce inappropriate long-term drug therapy. In systems with a more aggressive laboratory investigation strategy, rationalization of test numbers will provide an immediate cost reduction while improving quality. Finally, use of point-of-care testing (POCT) means that biochemical testing can be pe
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European heart journal · Nov 1998
Case ReportsExperience with cardiac troponin T in difficult cases.
Recent years have seen the advent of new cardiac markers. These have been shown to be valuable in large controlled clinical trials. The breakthrough of the troponins world-wide for detection of myocardial lesions has meant that the Cardiac Troponin T parameter has been available in our hospital since August 1996. ⋯ Cardiac troponin T has proved to be a very reliable parameter in all of these patients due to its high sensitivity and specificity, where other conventional diagnostic procedures were not helpful due to co-morbidity and confounding factors. New clinically relevant information can be obtained by both individual as well as serial measurements. Cardiac troponin T determination is a powerful new tool and should be considered seriously, regardless of other underlying diseases: it is, therefore, not only a diagnostic but also a management tool.