A potentially groundbreaking heart attack test could save women's lives, according to recent research.
A study funded by the British Heart Foundation and published in the British Medical Journal found that a new blood test's sensitivity to very small levels of the protein (troponin) released during heart attacks in females attacks enabled it to double the diagnoses achieved by conventional methods to a rate more in keeping with that found in males.
"Our findings suggest one reason for the difference in heart attack diagnosis rates of men and women is that we, as doctors, may have been using a threshold for troponin testing that is too high in women," noted Anoop Shah, clinical lecturer in cardiology at the University of Edinburgh.
The BHF is now funding a 26,000-patient trial to determine whether or not the new test improves outcomes.
