Singapore – Measurement of cardiac troponin in stable patients with chest pain using the ultra-sensitive Singulex cTnI assay and Single Molecule Counting technology can independently predict moderate and severe coronary disease (CAD), suggesting its clinical utility for accurate, safe and cost-effective evaluation of patients in an outpatient setting, according to a study appearing in the March issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology Imaging.
Cardiac troponin is a well-established biomarker currently used in hospital Emergency Departments to help diagnose myocardial infarction (MI) in patients who present with acute chest pain. Findings from The Prospective Multicenter Imaging Study for Evaluation of Chest Pain (PROMISE) Trial shed light on the broader potential of troponin measurement in the chronic setting.
"Chest discomfort is one of the most commonly-encountered complaints in outpatient medicine, and represents a major diagnostic challenge as patients often present with a broad range of non-specific symptoms or signs," said James Januzzi, Jr, MD, Physician in the Cardiology Division at Massachusetts General Hospital, the Hutter Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Senior Cardiometabolic Trials Faculty at the Baim Institute for Clinical Research. "Classical history and physical examination for determining cause of chest discomfort is neither sensitive nor specific to identify obstructive CAD as the cause of this common complaint. Having a diagnostic blood test to enhance ability to rapidly and accurately support clinical judgment, identify or rule-out CAD would address these challenges," he said.
With up to 1000 times more sensitivity than existing technologies, Single Molecule Counting reveals the presence or absence of disease more clearly and definitively than was possible before. The Singulex cTnI assay using proprietary Single Molecule Counting technology is the first test to quantitatively measure cardiac troponin down to femtogram per milliliter levels, far lower than existing high sensitivity troponin immunoassays, enabling unprecedented insight into cardiovascular disease.
