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UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL: WEDNESDAY 21 JANUARY 2015 00:01AM GMT
Abbott’s High Sensitive Troponin Test May Help Doctors Double the Diagnosis of Women’s Myocardial Infarction
STUDY RESULTS: The British Medical Journal today published results online that show Abbott’s ARCHITECT STAT High Sensitive Troponin-I (hsTnl) test may help doctors to detect twice as many myocardial infarctions (MI or heart attacks) in women. Results showed that Abbott’s test was able to diagnose a MI in 22 percent of cases for women compared to a standard of 11 percent, when using a sex-specific threshold (an approach to setting diagnostic thresholds which tailors treatment and test thresholds by gender).i
The study was funded by a special project grant from the British Heart Foundation. It was conducted by researchers at the University of Edinburgh and collected data from 1,126 patients to evaluate the use of Abbott’s test in diagnosing MI.
Abbott’s test can precisely measure very low levels of cardiac troponin, a protein which at increased levels can indicate injury to the heart.ii This is especially important for women, who often have lower levels of troponin than men. As a result, some women may have their heart attacks undetected and undiagnosed. These factors, as well as others, contribute to inequalities in the diagnosis and treatment of women. iii
“Women are likely to have poorer outcomes following a heart attack compared to men of the same age,” said Dr. Shah, one of the study authors from the University of Edinburgh. “While men and women are just as likely to present to the emergency department with chest pain, men are currently twice as likely to be diagnosed with a heart attack. The high sensitive troponin test, with gender specific thresholds for men and women, may diagnose more heart attacks in women, and identify women at high risk who may benefit from from targeted evidence based therapy.”
NICE GUIDANCE: The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended Abbott’s hsTnl test, among others, in October 2014 to help doctors quickly rule out heart attacks in NHS emergency departments in England and Wales.iv By using Abbott’s hsTnI test, doctors may reduce the time for evaluating heart attacks by several hours compared to standard troponin tests.v Among the tests included in this guidance, only Abbott’s hsTnI test offers gender specific cutoffs.
POTENTIAL IMPACT: According to statistics published by the British Heart Foundation, approximately 175,000 heart attacks/year (110,000 men and 65,000 women) are diagnosed in the UK, which equates to one heart attack every three minutes. vi
Abbott’s hsTnI test is commercially available in in Europe, as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil. The test runs on Abbott’s fully automated ARCHITECT family of analyzers.
MEDIA CONTACTS: If you’d like to speak with a medical expert or would like more information, please contact: Julie Masters, julie.masters@fleishmaneurope.com, Tel: +44 20 7395 7129,
Mob: +44 7595 014909 or Jessica Masuga, jessica.masuga@abbott.com, Mob: +1 (847) 970-1391, Tel: +1 (224) 668-0650.
[1] Anoop S, Mills N, Griffiths M, et al. High-sensitivity cardiac troponin and the underdiagnosis of myocardial infarction in women: A prospective cohort study. British Medical Journal. Website: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/doi/10.1136/bmj.h15
[2] Thygesen K, Alpert JS, Jaffe AS, et al. Third universal definition of myocardial infarction. European Heart Journal. 2012; 33:2551-2567.
[3] Pope JH, Aufderheide TP, Ruthazer R, et al. Missed diagnoses of acute cardiac ischemia in the emergency department. New England Journal of Medicine. 2000; 342:1163-1170.
[4] NICE Guidance: Myocardial infarction (acute): Early rule out using high-sensitivity troponin tests. Website: http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/dg15
[5] Abbott ARCHITECT STAT High Sensitive Troponin-I Package Insert (PI), November 2013.
[6] Heart attack numbers underestimated. British Heart Foundation. Aug. 9, 2014. Website: https://www.bhf.org.uk/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2014/august/35-per-cent-more-heart-attacks
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