• E Mahla, K Tiesenhausen, P Rehak, S Fruhwald, P Pürstner, and H Metzler.
• Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Department of Surgery, and Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria. cardanaesth@kfunigraz.ac.at
• J Clin Anesth. 2000 May 1;12(3):208-12.

Study ObjectiveTo investigate whether there is an association between Troponin T (TnT), reflecting myocardial cell injury, and cortisol, reflecting the degree of surgical trauma and associated stress, in light of our recent evaluation of TnT as a marker of perioperative myocardial cell injury.DesignProspective, cohort study.Patients70 patients (67.4 +/- 8.7 yrs) with definite or at-risk coronary artery disease (CAD) undergoing elective noncardiac surgery (vascular n = 38, abdominal n = 21, orthopedic n = 8) with general (n = 63) or regional (n = 4) anesthesia with postoperative on-demand analgesia.Measurements And Main ResultsMorning blood samples for TnT (upper limit of normal: <0.2 ng/mL), CK-MB (reference range ConclusionsThe significant relationship between a highly sensitive and specific marker of myocardial cell injury and a marker of stress suggests that cardiac-risk patients undergoing stressful surgical procedures might benefit from close perioperative TnT monitoring with early recognition of myocardial cell injury.

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