An attempt to quantify the plasma levels of troponin-T and CK-MB after coronary surgery caused by release unrelated to permanent myocardial injury

• Background: Release of biochemical markers of myocardial injury unrelated to permanent myocardial damage has been claimed to explain a major proportion of elevations seen after cardiac surgery. However, little is known about the magnitude of this unspecific release. The aim of this study was to shed light on this issue by serial measurements in patients without permanent myocardial injury after coronary surgery.Methods: The unique release kinetics of troponin-T were employed to identify patients with no or minimal permanent myocardial injury. 302 patients undergoing CABG procedures (employing cardiopuhnonary bypass, crystalloid cardioplegia and retransfusion of shed mediastinal blood) were studied.Results: 90 patients were found to have normalized troponin-T levels no later than the fourth postoperative day indicating that early elevation of biochemical markers was explained almost purely by unspecific release. In this subgroup troponin-T (2.03±1.36 µg/L; range 0.35-8.99 µg/L) peaked at the 3 hour recording and CK-MB (28.3±10.7 µg/L; range 11.9-86 µg/L) peaked at the 8 hour recording after unclamping the aorta.Conclusions: A substantial early release of CK-MB and troponin-T occurred in patients with no or minimal permanent myocardial injury after CABG. The time frame when unspecific release was most pronounced is frequently studied to evaluate myocardial protective strategies or to compare different treatment modalities. Also, differences in unspecific release of biochemical markers can be expected depending on type of surgical procedure or coronary intervention. Therefore, further efforts to hring clarity about diagnostic pitfalls are warranted to prevent inappropriate comparisons and to improve our assessment of myocardial damage in association with revascularisation procedures.

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