A simple blood test costs less than $ 10 could prevent hundreds of heart attacks and other unfavorable heart events per year.
Troponin is a protein found in cardiac muscle cells which, if detected in the blood circulation, means that the heart has been damaged in one way or another: a key indicator of the risk of cardiovascular disease with greater predictive power than cholesterol levels.
A troponin detection test that can be administered with other simple blood tests could alert hundreds of patients at their risk of heart crisis and stroke, allowing them to change their lifestyle or even start to take statins, before an unfavorable heart event.
The concept has been demonstrated in an article published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The authors have shown that the addition of cardiac troponin levels to existing risk factors such as smoking status, cholesterol, the presence of diabetes and blood pressure increased the predictoring powers of these screenings – lost after CVD events or before a prescription of statins.
In fact, in their study Out of 62,000 British with 15 -year follow -up, an additional MCV event would be prevented for 408 and 473 people detected when troponin was added, the result of troponin being a good indicator of so -called “silent” heart damage that could lead to a CVD event in the future.
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The study also revealed that the addition of troponin tests meant that up to 8% of people classified as an intermediate risk have been changed at high risk.
“Troponin, even in the normal beach, is a powerful indicator of damage to silent cardiac muscles”, ” said Anoo Shah, professor of cardiovascular medicine at the London School of hygiene and tropical medicine and the main author of the study.
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“As such, the test provides an additional layer of information that we can use to increase our precision when forecasting the risk of people. We want to identify as many high -risk people as possible, so that no one is missing the opportunity to obtain preventive treatment. ”
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