An acute myocardial infarction is a serious condition in which part of the heart muscle is not
supplied with enough blood, and this part of the muscle may become damaged or die.
Various clinical, electrocardiographic and biochemical tests are used for the diagnosis of
acute myocardial infarction, with the determination of troponin I or troponin T being one of
the key biochemical analyses. Troponins I and T are proteins found in heart muscle. When
the heart muscle is damaged or dies, these proteins are released into the bloodstream.
Determining the level of troponin in the blood is important in diagnosing a heart attack, as
this test is very sensitive and specific for the heart muscle. With the research, we wanted to determine the significance of determining cardiac troponins
T and I in various forms of acute coronary syndrome. We used data on patients who were
treated at the Emergency Department of the University Medical Center in Ljubljana for chest
pain, and their troponin T and I concentrations were measured. We found that there are
statistically significant differences in troponin T and I concentrations in different forms of
acute coronary syndrome. Patients diagnosed with STEMI had the highest concentrations of
both troponin I and troponin T. We have demonstrated that there is a strong correlation
between troponin T and I between diagnoses, and that both are most often elevated in all
diagnoses. We proved that troponin T and I do not exceed their upper limits. We also
calculated concordance ratios and found that in 82 % of cases the levels of troponin T and I
elevations matched, while in 18 % of cases they did not match. For patients in whom only
one troponin was elevated, while the other troponin was within reference limits, we obtained
information on the final diagnosis or associated diseases, and looked at the concentrations
of troponin T and I in these diagnoses.
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