Diagnosis of perioperative myocardial infarction after heart valve surgery with new cut-off point of high-sensitivity troponin T and new ECG or echocardiogram changes

These authors from Spain retrospectively analyzed a group of 805 patients undergoing isolated heart valve surgery in order to correlate levels of high-sensitivity troponin T (hs-cTnT) and CK-MB with whether a patient experienced a postoperative MI, as diagnosed by EKG and/or TTE.  

In all, 88 patients (10.9%) met the criteria for MI.  In comparing the non-MI to the MI patients, the authors found, by analyzing the Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC), the following peak cut-off levels to distinguish whether a patient had a postop MI or not:

• hs-cTnT:  >1057 pg/mL @ 16 hours
• CK-MB:  >55 mg/dl @ 8 hours.