Clinical trial NCT03400553: Troponin POCT in the Diagnosis of an Acute Myocardial Infarction
Official title: Time Gain of Pre-hospital Troponin Point of Care Testing in the Diagnosis of an Acute Myocardial Infarction
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Acute Myocardial Infarction
Troponin
Lead sponsor: Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2018-01-17
Enrollment: 71
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 100
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: DIAGNOSTIC

Brief summary: Thoracic pain can be caused by a life threatening disease as for instance a heart attack. Fast diagnosis and treatment is necessary for an advantageous clinical outcome. When a patient enters the emergency unit, an electrocardiogram (ECG) can diagnose a heart attack by recording the electrical activity of the patients' heart. However, an increasing number of patients with an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) are presenting without significant abnormalities on ECG In the latter group, diagnosis is dependent of elevated biochemical markers of myocardiocyte necrosis in the blood such as troponin. Generally, troponins are determined in blood and are analyzed by radiometry or at the hospital's laboratory. Time loss in the acquisition of troponin levels can occur during the workflow due to blood sampling difficulties, transport of the blood samples, processing in the laboratory, and processes inherent to the measuring assays. Roche developed a portable point-of-care (POC) device that determines troponin-T in a few minutes by using small volumes of the patient's blood with the added value that this device can be used in a pre-hospital setting which might save a significant amount of time in determining troponin levels.In this way, a faster diagnosis of AMI can be made improving patients' outcome.

Detailed description: In this prospective pilot study, 70 patients will be recruited over a time period of one year, with non-traumatic thoracic pain in a pre-hospital setting. While the ambulance or MUG is transporting such a patient, he/she is asked (informed consent) if an extra blood sample can be taken for measuring troponin levels by the portable device of Roche (cobas h232®). This can be done during the same venipuncture needed for standard-of-care analysis of the two other blood samples used for troponin-T by the radiometer and the laboratory. An ECG is performed in the ambulance and when it is positive, a patient is diagnosed immediately with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and will be to transported as fast as possible to the coronary care unit. The blood samples retrieved in the ambulance are transported to the lab and to the table top radiometer in the emergency unit. As stated before, an increasing number of patients with AMI are presenting without significant abnormalities on ECG. Therefore, the troponin-T levels in the blood sample will provide extra information to make an appropriate diagnosis. It is our hypothesis, that the Cobas h232 device will provide faster results and thus a faster diagnosis of AMI which benefit patients' outcome.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Non-traumatic thoracic pain
* Transportation via ambulance or MUG
* Written informed consent form (ICF) has to be obtained from the patient

Exclusion Criteria:

* Age \<18 years

Primary outcomes:
measure: The time to diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI)
timeFrame: one hour
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Time since onset of chest pain to first blood sample
timeFrame: one hour
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Genk
country: Belgium
facility: Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg
Study officials:
affiliation: Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg
name: Pascal Vanelderen, MD PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: