Cardiovascular: Cardiac Biomarkers Flashcards
What are the three broad categories of biomarkers you could use is the diagnosis of MI including their drawbacks
Major blood marker of MI
Troponin
What is the most sensitive MI biomarker?
Troponin baby
What is CK
Creatine Kinase - it is an old MI biomarker, not as sensitive as troponin and isn’t cardiac specific
Why is troponin found during an MI?
It is found in cardiac muscle cells and released when they die
What is heart failure when compared with an MI?
It just means the heart is inadequately working at pumping oxygen around the body, there is no cell death due to hypoxia
Heart failure diagnosis with imaging?
And the dissadvantages
Echocardiography
MRI
Measure cardiac pressure and ejection fraction
Gold standard but it expensive and has long waiting lists
What are natriuretic peptides?
They are naturally made by your myocardium and act as a diuretic and vasodilator.
They are made more by a heart under stress in order to be less under stress hence are an indicator of heart failure
Main natriuretic peptide you would look for?
BNP:
b-natriuretic peptide or Nt-pro BNP
Which parts of the CV system do the different natriuretic peptides belong?
Why do have to be carful with a BNP positive test?
It is not specific to heart failure
Can indicate hypertension, PE, valvular heart diseae, AF, sepsis etc.
Best used to rule out heart failure if it’s not there. But if it is there then you woul ddo further tests such as echocardiogram etc.
Frst cheap easy test for heart failure?
BNP
Blood test you would do in breathlessness vs chest pain?
Chest pain: Troponin
Breathlessness: BNP (heart failure/PE) and D-dimer (PE)
