• Juan Pablo Costabel, Diego Conde, and Florencia Lambardi.
• Chief of Cardiovascular Emergency Care Section, Instituto Cardiovascular de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina. drconde@hotmail.com
• Am J Emerg Med. 2013 Aug 1;31(8):1226-9.

BackgroundChest pain represents between 5% and 10% of annual visits to emergency departments (EDs) and near 25% of hospitalizations. Characterization of chest pain is sometimes difficult, and strategies should focus on preventing inappropriate discharge of patients with acute coronary syndrome. The goal of our study is to compare negative predictive value of the algorithm in the chest pain unit using the fourth-generation troponin T assay (4GTT) vs high-sensitivity troponin T assay (HSTT).MethodsWe included 600 patients with probable acute coronary syndrome, who were discharged from the chest pain unit without an acute coronary syndrome: 300 patients in the 4GTT group and 300 patients in the HSTT group. Clinical and laboratory variables were analyzed. All the patients were followed up at 30 days, and the cardiovascular events were recorded.ResultsMajor cardiac events occurred in only 3 (1.2%) in the HSTT group vs 5 (1.7%) in the 4GTT group (P, nonsignificant). The negative predictive value was 99% in both groups. Emergency department length of stay was 4.3 ± 2.6 hours in HSTT group vs 10 ± 3.4 hours in the 4GTT group (P = .01).ConclusionThe algorithm in the chest pain unit using HSTT showed to have the same negative predictive value as the algorithm with the 4GTT but with a shorter stay in the ED.Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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