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The HEART score with high-sensitive troponin T at presentation: ruling out patients with chest pain in the emergency room

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Abstract

The HEART score is a simple scoring system, ranging from 0 to 10, specifically developed for risk stratification of patients with undifferentiated chest pain. It has been validated for the conventional troponin, but not for high-sensitive troponin. We assess a modified version of the HEART score using a single high-sensitivity troponin T dosage at presentation, regardless of symptom duration, and with different ECG criteria to evaluate if the patients with a low HEART score could be safely discharged early. The secondary aim was to confirm a statistically significant difference in each HEART score group (low 0–3, intermediate 4–6, high 7–10) in the occurrence of major adverse cardiac events at 30 and 180 days. We retrospectively analyzed the HEART score of 1597 consecutive patients admitted to the Emergency Department of our Hospital for chest pain between January 1 and June 30, 2014. Of these, 190 did not meet the inclusion criteria and 29 were lost to follow-up. None of the 512 (37.2 %) patients with a low HEART score had an event within 180 days. The difference between the cumulative incidences of events in the three HEART score groups was statistically significant (P < 0.0001). We demonstrate that it might be possible to safely discharge Emergency Department chest pain patients with a low modified HEART score after an initial determination of high-sensitive troponin T, without a prolonged observation period or an additional cardiac testing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Emergency, Medicina d’Urgenza e Pronto Soccorso, Policlinico S. Orsola-Malpighi, Alma Mater Studiorum—University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Luca Santi

  2. Department of Emergency, Medicina d’Urgenza e Pronto Soccorso, Policlinico S. Orsola-Malpighi, Bologna, Italy

    Gabriele Farina & Mario Cavazza

  3. Department of Clinical and Surgical Sciences, Semeiotica Medica, Policlinico S. Orsola-Malpighi, Alma Mater Studiorum—University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Annagiulia Gramenzi, Franco Trevisani & Mauro Bernardi

  4. Department of Clinical and Surgical Sciences, Endocrinologia, Policlinico S. Orsola-Malpighi, Alma Mater Studiorum—University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Margherita Baccini

Authors
  1. Luca Santi
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  2. Gabriele Farina
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  3. Annagiulia Gramenzi
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  5. Margherita Baccini
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  7. Mario Cavazza
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Correspondence to Luca Santi.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Santi, L., Farina, G., Gramenzi, A. et al. The HEART score with high-sensitive troponin T at presentation: ruling out patients with chest pain in the emergency room. Intern Emerg Med 12, 357–364 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11739-016-1461-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11739-016-1461-3

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