Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death in Slovenia as well as globally. The most common cardiovascular diseases are caused by blockages in coronary arteries, mainly occuring in the process of atherosclerosis, called coronary heart diseases, of which acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is the most dangerous form. Suffering from AMI is increasing yearly. In order to prevent further complications following onset of AMI, quick and accurate diagnostiscs is necessary. In the past creatin kinase and creatin kinase isoenzyme (CK-MB) were the main biochemical markers of myocardial infarction. However in the year 2000 European Society od Cardiology and American College of Cardiology Task Force recommended cardiac troponin (cTnI and cTnT) as the biochemical marker of choice for diagnosis of myocardial infarction. In this study we measured cTnI concentration in 1425 patients with two different chemiluminiscent assays (DiaSorin Liaison® Troponin I and Bayer ADVIA Centaur® TnI-Ultra™). The analysis took place in Clinical Centre Ljubljana, Clinical Institute of Chemistry and Biochemistry. For statistical evaluation we used 506 patients who were examined in The Department of First Aid for Internal Medicine. Among these patients we found 86 cases, in which the two methods gave opposite results. Out of those 86 cases, 18 were diagnosed with either STEMI, NSTEMI or angina pectoris. We used these findigs to evaluate the specificity and sensitivity for both methods and came to the following conclusion: DiaSorin Liaison® Troponin I has higher specificity, while Bayer ADVIA Centaur® TnI-Ultra™ is more sensitive.
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