Rates of Positive Cardiac Troponin I and Creatine Kinase MB Mass Among Patients Hospitalized For Suspected Acute Coronary Syndromes
Rates of Positive Cardiac Troponin I and Creatine Kinase MB Mass Among Patients Hospitalized For Suspected Acute Coronary Syndromes
Rates of Positive Cardiac Troponin I and Creatine Kinase MB Mass Among Patients Hospitalized For Suspected Acute Coronary Syndromes
333338 (2004)
Proteomics and
Protein Markers
Consensus guidelines from the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology (ACC),4 and European Society of Cardiology (ESC) have endorsed the use
of serum or plasma cardiac troponins for the diagnosis of
acute myocardial infarction (AMI) (1 4 ). Revised criteria
predicated on cardiac troponins are based on their improved sensitivity and specificity over creatine kinase MB
(CKMB) (59 ) and their prognostic usefulness in patients
with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) (10 13 ). In the US,
there are numerous commercial cardiac troponin I (cTnI)
and T (cTnT) assays for the diagnosis of AMI, all with
various operating characteristics (14 ). However, hospitals
and emergency departments currently do not observe
uniform cutoff values for interpreting cardiac troponin assays, even for the same assay. Since the adoption of the
1
Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School, and 2 Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health,
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
3
Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Hennepin County
Medical Center and University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis,
MN.
*Address correspondence to these authors: Russell V. Luepker, Division of
Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, 1300 South
Second St., Suite 300, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (fax 612-624-0315; e-mail
[email protected]); or Fred S. Apple, Hennepin County Medical Center,
Clinical Laboratories P4-Lab, 701 Park Ave., Minneapolis MN 55415 (fax
612-904-4229; e-mail [email protected]).
Received August 29, 2003; accepted November 20, 2003.
Previously published online at DOI: 10.1373/clinchem.2003.026708
4
Nonstandard abbreviations: ACC, American College of Cardiology; ESC,
European Society of Cardiology; AMI, acute myocardial infarction; CKMB,
creatine kinase MB; ACS, acute coronary syndrome; and cTnI and cTnT,
cardiac troponin I and T, respectively.
333
1469 (85.5%)
1348 (78.4%)
1248 (72.6%)
1137 (66.1%)
112 (6.5%)
159 (9.2%)
195 (11.3%)
221 (12.9%)
71 (4.1%)
73 (4.2%)
98 (5.7%)
209 (12.2%)
Cutoffs are defined in the text.
a
183 (10.6%)
232 (13.5%)
293 (17.0%)
430 (25.0%)
cTnI 1.2 g/L; CKMB 10.0 g/L
cTnI 0.6 g/L; CKMB 5.0 g/L
cTnI 0.3 g/L; CKMB 3.9 g/L
cTnI 0.1 g/L; CKMB 3.9 g/L
Twice the ROC
ROC
10% CV
99th percentile
179 (10.4%)
298 (17.3%)
373 (21.7%)
373 (21.7%)
cTnI()/CKMB(),
n (%)
cTnI()/CKMB(),
n (%)
cTnI()/CKMB(),
n (%)
Total CKMB(),
n (%)
Total cTnI(),
n (%)
Cutoff concentrations
Table 1. Cardiac biomarker results for 1719 consecutive hospital patients admitted for suspected ACS.
cTnI()/CKMB(),
n (%)
67 (3.9%)
139 (8.1%)
178 (10.4%)
152 (8.8%)
Cutoffa
334
335
0.0001c
0.0001c
0.0001c
Cutoffs are defined in the text.
For cTnI()/CKMB() vs cTnI()/CKMB().
c
For cTnI()/CKMB() vs cTnI()/CKMB().
b
cTnI()/CKMB()
77.6 (53.0102.1)
65.8 (45.486.1)
60.6 (42.578.7)
21.6 (15.727.4)
15.9 (11.720.2)
14.9 (10.319.4)
cTnI()/CKMB()
P
Results
0.0001b
0.0001b
0.0001b
1.8 (1.32.2)
1.1 (0.91.3)
0.6 (0.50.7)
cTnI()/CKMB()
analyses were performed with SAS for Windows software, Ver. 8.02.
22.7 (15.629.9)
18.8 (12.824.7)
16.6 (11.321.9)
cTnI()/CKMB()
Cutoff concentrations
Cutoff
ROC
10% CV
99th percentile
CKMB
cTnI
Table 2. Maximum cardiac biomarker concentrations for 1719 consecutive patients admitted for suspected ACS.
The mean (SD) age of the 1719 suspected ACS patients for
these admissions was 58.4 (14.7) years (median, 57.3 years;
range, 18 98 years). Of these patients, 57.1% (n 983)
were male. Whites accounted for the majority of these
admissions, comprising 52.1% of admissions. Blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asians comprised 30.3%,
7.0%, 3.3%, and 2.3% of admissions, respectively. Other
ethnicities accounted for 5.0% of admissions.
Of the 1719 suspected ACS admissions, 183 (10.6%),
232 (13.5%), 293 (17.0%), and 430 (25.0%) cases were
cTnI-positive, as determined by cutoffs based on twice the
ROC (cTnI 1.2 g/L), the ROC (cTnI 0.6 g/L), 10%
CV (cTnI 0.3 g/L), and the 99th percentile (cTnI 0.1
g/L), respectively (Table 1). Similarly, 179 (10.4%), 298
(17.3%), 373 (21.7%), and 373 (21.7%) were CKMB-positive, as determined by the twice the ROC (CKMB 10.0
g/L), ROC (CKMB 5.0 g/L), 10% CV (CKMB 3.9
g/L), and 99th percentile (CKMB 3.9 g/L) cutoffs,
respectively. Depending on which reference cutoff was
used, 6.512.9% of cases were cTnI-positive/CKMB-positive, whereas 4.112.2% of cases were cTnI-positive/
CKMB-negative. Therefore, compared with the ROC cutoff, the 10% CV cutoff yielded 26% more cTnI-positive
cases overall and 34% more cTnI-positive/CKMB-negative cases. Compared with the ROC cutoff, the 99th
percentile cutoff produced 85% more cTnI-positive cases
overall and 186% more cTnI-positive/CKMB-negative
cases. Furthermore, in the cTnI-positive/CKMB-negative
cases and in the overall cTnI-positive cases, we observed
113% and 47% increases in cases, respectively, between
the 10% CV and the 99th percentile cutoffs.
As reference cutoff concentrations decreased, no consistent pattern was observed in cTnI-negative/CKMBpositive cases, which comprised 3.9%, 8.1%, 10.4%, and
8.8% of all admissions, as determined by the twice the
ROC, ROC, 10% CV, and 99th percentile cutoffs, respectively. Table 1 also shows the total number of positive
cases when a cutoff of twice the ROC was used: 179 cases
(10.4%) were detected for CKMB and 183 cases (10.6%) for
cTnI, with an approximately equal number of cTnI-positive/CKMB-negative (n 71; 4.1%) and cTnI-negative/
CKMB-positive (n 67; 3.9%) cases.
Among cTnI-positive cases, the mean maximum cTnI
concentration for each hospital admission was 12 to 25
times higher (P 0.0001) in CKMB-positive than CKMBnegative cases (Table 2). Distribution analysis of maximum cTnI values by box plots (Fig. 1) demonstrated that
median values for maximum cTnI were substantially
higher among CKMB-positive than CKMB-negative cases:
6.2 vs 1.3 g/L, 3.7 vs 0.8 g/L, and 2.9 vs 0.3 g/L, as
determined by the ROC, 10% CV, and 99th percentile
cutoffs, respectively. Maximum cTnI concentrations for
cTnI-positive/CKMB-positive cases were skewed toward
336
Discussion
This study shows that of the 1719 hospital admissions to
an urban hospital for suspected ACS over a 6-month
period, there was an 17% prevalence [based on the 10%
CV cutoff used in clinical practice by the hospital (14 )] of
cTnI-positive cases. However, depending on which reference cutoff is chosen, this prevalence can be as low as
13.5% (ROC cutoff) to as high as 25% (99th percentile
cutoff; Table 1). Although the majority of these cTnIpositive cases were also CKMB-positive, the prevalence of
cTnI-positive cases that were CKMB-negative accounted
for 4.212.2% of all ACS admissions, which is nearly the
proportion of cTnI-positive/CKMB-positive cases (Table
1). It has been proposed that among ACS patients, troponin-positive/CKMB-negative cases probably represent
non-Q-wave or non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction
diagnosed by cTnI or cTnT that would have been diagnosed as unstable angina by CKMB (3 ). Thus, adoption of
lower biomarker reference limits, such as the 99th percentile cutoff endorsed by the ESC/ACC guideline (1, 2, 4 ),
produces additional cTnI-positive/CKMB-negative cases
that probably represent mild cases of AMI. Therefore,
lower biomarker reference cutoffs will contribute to increased rates of AMI diagnoses (1719 ). Any increases in
cTnI or CKMB above the different cutoff concentrations
were considered indicative of a MI. We acknowledge that
in clinical practice, careful review of the clinical data
would be prospectively included in the context of minor
biomarker increases before diagnoses were determined.
Determination of clinical outcomes was not part of this
study design, but the clinical significance of lowering the
MI cutoff to the 99th percentile has been supported by
studies that have demonstrated added risk stratification
for adverse outcomes at cardiac troponin concentrations
above the 99th percentile but below both the 10% CV and
the ROC curve cutoffs (12, 13, 24 ). In the current study,
this would have included an additional 137 patients (47%
increase) between the 99th percentile and 10% CV cutoffs
and an additional 61 patients (26% increase) between the
10% CV and ROC cutoffs, with an overall increase of 85%
between the ROC and 99th percentile cutoffs.
On the basis of the 99th percentile cutoffs, the prevalence of CKMB-positive cases among ACS patients in our
hospital was 21.7%. However, only 40% of these were
cTnI-positive. These cases should be considered representative of AMI. The specificity of cTnI for diagnosis of AMI
has been established as superior to that of CKMB
(23, 25, 26 ). As such, 60% of the cases that were CKMBpositive in our study may be considered false positives for
AMI. Preliminary analysis of these CKMB-positive/cTnInegative cases suggests that they can be explained by the
presence of trauma, rhabdomyolysis, generalized seizures, myopathies, and other mechanisms of injury to
skeletal muscle that cause increases in CKMB in the
absence of myocardial damage (4 6, 26 ). Supporting our
categorization of these cases as false positive for myocardial injury, there is no literature to our knowledge that has
demonstrated a MI case that shows increased CKMB with
a normal cardiac troponin.
When only a single, maximum CKMB concentration is
used as a diagnostic biomarker for MI detection in the
clinical setting, for epidemiology trending, or for clinical
trial enrollment or endpoint criteria, caution is suggested
regarding the potential of false-positive CKMB results as
being indicative of and interpreted as myocardial injury.
Although not part of the current study design, trending
rising and falling CKMB patterns would likely assist in
distinguishing true-positive CKMB increases from falsepositive CKMB increases. Interestingly, when twice the
ROC cutoff concentrations for both CKMB and cTnI were
used, as are commonly used in clinical or epidemiology
trials, an approximately equal number of cTnI-positive/
CKMB-positive cases were identified overall, with no
difference found when the alternative biomarker was negative (Table 1). This observation again demonstrates how
event rates can be confounded based on biomarker cutoffs
that are used for study enrollment or endpoint criteria.
ESC/ACC consensus guidelines (1, 2 ), in agreement
with the IFCC (27 ), have specifically proposed that the
upper reference limit of normal for cardiac troponin measurements should be the 99th percentile of a reference
control group. Furthermore, it has been agreed on that all
cardiac troponin assays should meet a total imprecision of
10% CV at the 99th percentile. Therefore, in the clinical
setting of myocardial ischemia, any increase of cTnI or cTnT
during the first 24 h after the index event is considered an
appropriate criterion for the diagnosis of AMI (1 4, 27 ). In
the current study, serial sampling over 1224 h after admission was used to determine the maximum cTnI or CKMB
concentrations and, thus, to determine the rate of MI. Therefore, whether the patient was triaged as an inpatient or
outpatient would not impact the overall findings of our
study. Current commercial assays, however, cannot attain
the 10% CV imposed by standard requirements for precision (14 ). This shortcoming probably contributes to the lack
of uniformity among hospitals and emergency departments
in their adoption of reference cutoffs for the various commercially available cTnI and cTnT assays used to diagnose
AMI. It has been proposed that until 10% CV can be
attained at the 99th percentile reference limit, the lowest
concentration that produces a CV of 10% should be adopted
as the diagnostic cutoff (14, 25 ). Our study has demonstrated that adopting a 99th percentile reference cutoff for
cTnI, in compliance with the current ESC/ACC guideline,
337
338
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