Heart Health
New Risk Assessment for Heart Attack Patients
By
Apr 3, 2008 - 9:12:32 AM

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - Doctors at the University of Leicester have investigated a simple blood test that can assess the condition of a patient admitted with a heart attack.

The blood test measures B-type natriuretic peptide (a protein secreted from the heart) and gives a better risk assessment than the TIMI score, traditionally used to assess a person’s condition and decide on their treatment.

The TIMI score is a clinical scoring method in routine use for risk assessment, involving clinical information such as age, past medical history, examination findings and ECG changes.
Professor Leong Ng, of the Pharmacology and Therapeutics Group in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, commented: “The blood test could potentially replace the TIMI score as a way of stratifying risk in heart attack patients. It’s also easier to do and quite reproducible.”

The research project, led by Professor Ng, was carried out by Dr Sohail Q Khan, who was employed on a British Heart Foundation fellowship.

Dr Khan and his colleagues compared the TIMI risk score and the blood test (NTproBNP) in the cases of 473 patients in the Coronary Care Unit of the Leicester Royal Infirmary. Using a non-competitive immunoassay, they measured NTproBNP in blood taken within 24 hours of the occurrence of chest pains, and again three or four days later.

Levels of the natriuretic peptide were found to be significantly lower among people who survived the heart attack than among those who died.

Further studies showed that the natriuretic peptide levels predicted mortality independently of other factors, even after adjusting for clinical factors such as left ventricular function and another risk indicator that is released after a heart attack (troponin)

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