Tag : Hospitalization

Washington: According to a study done by the University of St Andrews, a commonly used medical test for heart injury may one day be used to help COVID-19 patients avoid hospitalisation. Cardiac troponins are proteins that form part of the heart's contractile machinery and are released into the bloodstream when the heart is damaged. It can be measured in a blood test which is widely used in the assessment of heart attacks and other heart conditions. Existing studies since 2020 have shown that COVID-19 patients who have elevated troponin levels are more likely to die or suffer adverse clinical outcomes compared with those who have normal troponin levels. However, despite this evidence, cardiac troponins are still not used in clinical practice to directly risk assess COVID-19 patients and this new paper, led by the University's Dr Alexander Liu and supervised by Dr Robert Hammond, Professor Peter Donnelly and Professor Anthony Coates, investigates the diagnostic properties of cardiac troponin and its potential to be used in mainstream clinical practice. Dr Liu, from the School of Medicine, said: "COVID-19 is undoubtedly one of the worst pandemics of our generation. Identifying patients at a greater or lesser risk for mortality - what clinical staff call risk-stratifying patients - is important, as it may help us decide which patients need more medical attention and which patients can be discharged safely. "Looking for heart injury is important because COVID-19 appears to have an ability to affect people's hearts, and not just their lungs, and existing literature showed that patients with heart injury do less well in terms of prognosis than those without. "Despite a body of evidence and potential, cardiac troponin is still not being used i ...