Wednesday, September 2, 2009

DCRI's Magnus Ohman quoted in US News & World Report about heart attack tests

Two studies published in the August 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine discuss new, possibly more accurate ways of diagnosing heart attacks in patients who come to the emergency department.

The DCRI's Magnus Ohman, MD, who was not involved with either study but is an expert on coronary diagnostic tests, was quoted in US News & World Reports as saying that the studies show that the new diagnostic tests can be more sensitive than the long-standing tests. Ohman said these tests can detect smaller levels of damage done to the heart during a heart attack.

The studies both reviewed tests for troponin, a protein released into the body when heart cells are damaged. When physicians suspect a patient has had a heart attack, they will often order a test to look for one of the two forms of troponin.

One of the studies compared newer versions of the tests for the two types of the proteins with the older versions of the tests that are widely used. That study found that the newer tests were more sensitive at finding damage to the heart and could more specifically indicate if the damage was caused by a heart attack.

The other study used the newer tests for both proteins with emergency room patients who physicians believed had had a heart attack.

While the findings are positive for the newer tests, Ohman said further studies are needed to help physicians decide which type of the protein to look for in the diagnostic test and when to use the newer versions versus the older versions.

Click here to read the article in US News & World Report .