Assay Improving Detection of Myocardial Injury

Roche Diagnostics is pleased to announce that the new Elecsys® Troponin T high sensitive (hs) assay, for use on cobas® and MODULAR Analytics serum work areas, is soon to be available to hospital laboratories in the UK and Ireland. This highly sensitive diagnostic assay has been developed to improve the detection of myocardial injury and to help identify risk of acute coronary syndromes, detecting Troponin T in the range of 0.003-10 ng/ml of serum or plasma.

Cardiac Troponins (Troponin T and Troponin I) are good indicators of myocardial injury due to their specificity for heart injury and because levels of these markers remain elevated in blood for an extended period of time. Even a small elevation in cardiac Troponin may indicate damage to the heart and require clinical intervention, and so new guidelines from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC) recommend a highly sensitive Troponin assay with excellent precision in the low end values (10% or less total variation at the 99th percentile of the reference range).

The new Elecsys® Troponin T hs assay meets the precision recommendations in the ESC/ACC guidelines. The improved sensitivity of the assay is of great  diagnostic and prognostic value, not only in patients with acute coronary syndromes, but also in stable patients with a variety of cardiac disorders. The sensitivity and precision of this new assay will enable more patients with ischaemic symptoms to be identified at an earlier stage, allowing earlier and more targeted treatment.

Although both Troponin T and Troponin I are good indicators of myocardial injury, the highly sensitive detection of Troponin T offered by the Elecsys® Troponin T hs assay is advantageous in patients with certain

medical conditions, for example, in the risk assessment of chronic renal failure patients and in helping to select patients that suffer from acute coronary syndrome for more intensive therapy and intervention.

The availability of the Elecsys® Troponin T hs assay will allow laboratories to consolidate their cardiac assays on a single integrated clinical chemistry and immunoassay platform (Serum Work Area). With 183

different assays, Roche offers the largest menu of tests available on an automated Serum Work Area platform.