A recent study published in the journal Heart suggests that a high level of troponin, a protein typically used to determine the likelihood of a heart attack in patients with chest pain, might be an indicator of increased mortality risk over the next few years, even if the individual doesn’t have diagnosed or suspected cardiovascular disease.
The research hints at the possibility of troponin being a more generalized predictor of medium-term survival.
Hospitalized patients sometimes exhibit high cardiac troponin levels without showing explicit heart attack symptoms. The clinical significance of this has been ambiguous.
In the study, over 20,000 hospital patients who underwent a troponin blood test for any reason between June and August 2017 at a large teaching hospital were monitored.
Most of these patients (over 90%) had no clinical reason for the troponin test. About 5.5% of the patients had high troponin levels. 14% of the participants died in just over 2 years.
The team found those with high troponin levels were almost 4 times more likely to die than those with normal levels.
Cancer was the leading cause of death (46%), with cardiovascular disease following at 13%.
Even after excluding deaths within the first 30 days (to rule out deaths associated with immediate hospital reasons), a high troponin level still indicated a higher risk of death.
However, the study doesn’t necessarily claim that the troponin level itself is the cause of the increased death risk.
Instead, high troponin might indicate a range of health issues, some potentially undiagnosed, that elevate this risk.
This is an observational study, meaning it doesn’t provide concrete evidence of cause and effect.
The study was conducted in a single hospital, and certain influential factors like background information and other health conditions weren’t considered.
Conclusions
The research team suggests that troponin might play a broader role in predicting medium-term prognosis beyond just heart attack contexts.
They emphasize the need for further research across various settings and exploring interventions that could mitigate the increased risk observed.
In summary, while high troponin levels are conventionally linked to heart attacks, this study suggests that they could also be indicative of other serious health issues and a higher overall risk of death in the medium term.
However, more comprehensive research is necessary to validate these findings.
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The study was published in Heart.
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