Heart Attack Test May Cut Emergency Room Diagnosis Time

Doctors may be able diagnose a heart attack in one hour using a new test approach that could save time, money and crowding in hospital emergency rooms, researchers said.

Using more-sensitive screening technology to detect changes in cardiac troponin, a substance in the blood tested for evidence of heart attack, and inputting the data into an algorithm, doctors were able to determine whether a heart attack had occurred in 77 percent of patients within an hour of arriving at the hospital with chest pain, according to research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.