The 99th Centile of highly sensitive troponin in a hospital population
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Is the Current Threshold for Diagnosis of "Abnormality", including non-ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction, using Raised Highly Sensitive Troponin Appropriate for a Hospital Population? The CHARIOT Study
IRAS ID
215262
Contact name
Nicholas Curzen
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Research & Developement, University Hospitals Southampton NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 2 days
Research summary
When diagnosing a heart attack clinicians use of combination of different factors. This includes the symptoms the patient has, what their ECG shows, and crucially a blood test which shows a rise in the patient's troponin level. With advances in technology clincians now have available a more sensitive blood test called the high sensitive troponin. However, patients can have a rise in their troponin levels from causes other than a heart attack. These include infections, heart failure and also other common illnesses such as high blood pressure and diabetes mellitus. This means that patients can be wrongly treated for a heart attack because their troponin levels are high for other reasons. This issue is made worse by the new highly sensitive troponin blood tests that are used in clinical practice. Part of the problem we believe is that the population of individuals used to define the cut off levels for a high troponin are healthy individuals with no medical problem aged 18-40 years old. We believe that if we measure troponin levels in the population of people who present to hospitals we will provide more accurate cut off levels for this population. This could result in a reduction in people wrongly treated for heart attacks based on their troponin levels. The CHARIOT study aims to check troponin levels in 20,000 individuals who have a blood test at University Hospitals Southampton for variety of reasons. Although some patients will be suspected of having a heart attack many of the patients will not be.
REC name
South Central - Hampshire B Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/SC/0042
Date of REC Opinion
2 Feb 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion