The study covered in this summary was published in researchsquare.com as a preprint and has not yet been peer reviewed.
Key Takeaways
In patients with nonobstructive coronary artery disease (CAD), modest troponin elevations indicating mild myocardial injury were associated with impaired myocardial perfusion when assessed with pharmacologic-stress myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE).
Levels of cardiac troponin I detected with high-sensitivity assay (hs-cTnl) predicted cardiovascular (CV) death or nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI) independent of microvascular dysfunction.
Why This Matters
Among patients with nonobstructive CAD, even those with only modestly elevated hs-cTnI levels, there is a subgroup at increased risk for progression to CV death or nonfatal MI.
Such hs-cTnI elevations might be related to prognosis by mechanisms other than myocardial ischemia, and could therefore be useful in the identification of high-risk groups for intervention.
Study Design
The retrospective study involved 474 patients with suspected CAD and no coronary stenoses of 50% or greater assessed at the First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, China, from 2011 to 2017.
The patients, with a median age of 57 years, 61% of whom were women, were followed for the composite of CV death or nonfatal MI.
Patients with previous MI or coronary revascularization, any cardiomyopathy, obstructive coronary disease on imaging, or a left ventricular ejection fraction below 50% were excluded.
