ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is essential for the patient's clinical course. Serum cardiac markers such as creatine kinase MB (CK-MB), myoglobin, and cardiac troponin I (cTnI) supply physicians with powerful methods of diagnosing AMI. We evaluated the usefulness of ACS:CentaurTM for the tests of cardiac markers. METHODS: We used three levels of control materials and 138 patient samples (AMI 49, cardiac diseases other than AMI 41, noncardiac diseases 48). We analyzed precision and linearity of CK-MB, myoglobin and cTnI using control materials. The cutoffs for the descrimination of AMI were determined using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and sensitivity and specificity of each marker were analyzed. RESULTS: Coefficients of variations (CVs) of within day precision and between day precision were below 4% except cTnI. Linearity analyses showed good results in all the three markers. The cutoffs were 3.7 ng/mL for CK-MB, 121.0 ng/mL for myoglobin and 0.4 ng/mL for cTnI. In the diagnosis of AMI, the sensitivities and specificities were 93.9% and 97.8% for CK-MB, 73.5% and 91.0% for myoglobin and 100.0% and 95.5% for cTnI, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The tests of cardiac markers using ACS:CentaurTM showed satisfactory precision and linearity, and they are specific and sensitive in the diagnosis of AMI. So, ACS:CentaurTM is useful for the measurement of cardiac markers in the diagnosis of AMI.