Medical Student Research Forum Posters

In the United States, chest pain is the second most common chief complaint among patients presenting to the emergency department (ED), representing over 7.3 million annual visits.

High-sensitivity (hs) cardiac troponin (cTn )has the potential to improve the care of patients with chest pain. Hs-cTn assays have superior diagnostic accuracy in patients with chest pain compared to conventional cardiac troponin (c-cTn) assays.

Large multi-center European studies have shown that use of hs-cTn is associated with decreased ED length-of-stay (LOS), decreased hospital admissions and decreased cardiac stress testing, providing promising evidence to refute these concerns.

Little data are available regarding the effects of hs-cTn assays on ED operational metrics and patient diagnoses in an American population.