Test will save thousands of hidden heart attack victims

Thousands of people at high risk of suffering a heart attack could be saved by an improved blood test, a new study by Scottish researchers suggests.

The team at the University of Edinburgh found that in patients admitted to hospital with chest pains, the use of a more sensitive blood test to identify heart muscle damage increased the number of patients diagnosed with a heart attack by a third.

They also found that after this test was introduced into clinical practice the risk of being readmitted to hospital with or dying from another heart attack within the following year was halved.

And patients were more likely to see a specialist and to receive better treatment following the introduction of the more sensitive test, according to the research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Experts are now calling for wider use of the test across the NHS to improve the care of heart attack patients.

The test - which was trialled on more than 2,000 patients at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh - can detect troponin, the protein released when heart muscle cells are damaged in an attack, at extremely low levels.

Researchers evaluating the more sensitive test detected troponin at levels four times lower than the previous standard test, allowing them to identify patients with smaller amounts of heart damage.

It was able to diagnose a third more patients as having had a heart attack than the standard test, which is still widely used.

Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director at charity the British Heart Foundation, said: "This promising study shows us that by using a more sensitive test for heart muscle damage, more patients who come to hospital with chest pains are identified as having suffered a small heart attack.

"Over recent years it has become clear that people who suffer heart pain but only a small amount of heart damage are at a very high risk of going on to have a larger, potentially fatal heart attack if left untreated.

"This test will help doctors identify this vulnerable group of patients."

He added that if further research corroborates the study's findings, there will be considerable pressure on the NHS to adopt the new test as standard for patients with chest pain.Dr Nicholas Mills, of the British Heart Foundation Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the University of Edinburgh, said: "Unfortunately, the use of outdated diagnostic thresholds for troponin continues to be widespread and lowering this threshold remains a highly contentious issue among doctors.

"We provide compelling evidence that adopting a more sensitive test and lowering the threshold for detection of heart muscle damage is appropriate and will substantially improve the outcome of patients with chest pain and suspected heart attack."

He added: "The research also shows us that it is not just patients with major heart attacks where treatment can make a difference.

"Even patients with comparatively minor heart damage benefit from these treatments."