Clin Chem Lab Med
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Conventional cardiac markers used for the biochemical diagnosis of acute coronary syndromes (ACS) have a high specificity but low sensitivity within 2-4 h of symptoms onset. The red blood cell distribution width (RDW), reflecting the size variability of circulating red blood cells, has been shown to be independently associated with an increased risk of major cardiovascular events. We assessed whether there is an association between RDW at admission and cardiac troponin T (cTnT) elevation in patients with chest pain. ⋯ As RDW is widely available to clinicians as a part of the complete blood count, and therefore incurs no additional costs, it might be considered with other conventional cardiac markers for the risk stratification of ACS patients admitted to emergency departments.
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Comparative Study
Evaluation of analytical performance of the Pathfast cardiac troponin I.
Cardiac troponins are considered the cornerstone for risk stratification and diagnosis of patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Following Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines, we assessed the analytical performances of the Pathfast (Mitsubishi, Japan) cTnI method. ⋯ The data indicate that the cTnI Pathfast method may be suitable for helping clinicians in the management of patients with ACS.
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Acutely dyspneic patients are challenging, because their symptoms can be due to cardiac, pulmonary or other diseases. B-type natriuretic peptide testing offers higher diagnostic accuracy (85%-90%) than clinical assessments for identifying heart failure as the cause of dyspnea. ⋯ It has been shown that systematic natriuretic peptide testing reduces the economic expenses associated with clinical management of acutely dyspneic patients. Finally, whether these biomarkers could be used to guide heart failure therapy in the acute setting remains to be elucidated.
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Authors are usually invited to follow the instructions to authors in scientific journals, because this section is likely to contain unique requirements, such as the references style requested. Authors not only must accurately check the instructions, but are also expected to verify references against the original documents before submitting the article, consuming a considerable amount of time. ⋯ A variety of international, peer-reviewed journals currently requires a rather different style, especially for the numbers of authors to be cited, the placing of the year of publication, the style of the journal title. A broad implementation of reasonable standards of practice and consensus guidelines for the format of manuscript references should be promoted for an advantageous process for both the journals and the authors.
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Adenosine deaminase (ADA) catalyzes the irreversible hydrolytic deamination of adenosine to inosine. The purpose of this study was to determine the plasma activities of total adenosine deaminase (ADA T), and its isoenzymes, ADA1 and ADA2, and ADA1/ADA2 ratio of male and female ischemic stroke patients. ⋯ Our results suggest that the primary mechanism in men with ischemic stroke might involve the reduction of ADA1 activity. The reduction is probably an adaptation mechanism for induced increase in adenosine availability and protection of brain to ischemic injury.