ABSTRACT
Objective:To explore the risk stratification value of HEART score combined with cardiac troponin (cTn) in emergency patients with chest pain.Methods:A total of 11 583 patients with chest pain who visited the Emergency Department of Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University from January to December 2019 were retrospectively collected. Patients who unfinished 0 h high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) or electrocardiogram diagnosed ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) or lost to follow-up were excluded, and 7 057 patients were finally included. The final diagnosis of chest pain and the occurrence of major adverse cardiovascular events within 6 mon (6 m MACEs) were followed up by telephone and medical history. The HEART score of each patient was calculated by two attending physicians, and the patients were divided into the low-risk group (0-3 points), intermediate-risk group (4-6 points) and high-risk group (7-10 points) according to the final score. The risk stratification performance and safety of HEART score were observed and analyzed. A total of 1 884 patients who completed serial hs-cTnT tests were divided into groups according to HEART score (≤3 as low-risk group) and HEART score combined with serial hs-cTnT pathway (HEART score ≤3 and two hs-cTnT measurements <0.03 ng/mL as the low-risk group). The sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP), positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of each diagnostic method were calculated to compare the diagnostic performance of the two predictive values.Results:The patients were divided into 3 groups by HEART score : 2 765 (39.2%) patients in the low-risk group, 3 438 (48.7%) in the intermediate-risk group, and 854 (12.1%) in the high-risk group. The incidence of 6 m MACEs in each group was 1.2%, 18% and 55.3%, respectively. When the low-risk threshold was 2, 23.1% of patients entered the low-risk group and the incidence of 6 m MACEs was 0.9%. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn to evaluate the predictive performance of the HEART score for 6 m MACEs, and the final AUC was 0.831 ( P=0.006, 95% CI: 0.819-0.843). Regarding the occurrence of NSTEMI at the time of this visit, 4 (0.8%) patients were misdiagnosed by using the HEART score alone. Combined with serial troponin detection, the diagnostic SE and NPV were both 100%; at the same time, the diagnostic SE and NPV of 6 m MACEs in patients increased from 98.1% (95% CI: 96.9%-99.1%), 97.9% (95% CI: 96.2%-99%) to 99.1% (95% CI: 97.9%-99.7%) and 98.9% (95% CI: 97.4%-99.6%), the diagnosis SE and NPV of 6 m myocardial infarction and cardiac death in patients increased from 98% (95% CI: 96%-99.2%), 98.6% (95% CI: 97%-99.4%) to 99.2% (95% CI: 97.6%-99.8%) and 99.3% (95% CI: 98.1%-99.9%). Conclusions:The HEART score can be used for risk assessment in emergency patients with chest pain, and a threshold of 2 is recommended for the low-risk group. The diagnostic performance of HEART score combined with serial cTn is better than that of HEART score alone.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To rapidly and safely identify the risk of developing acute coronary syndrome in patients with chest pain who present to the emergency department, the clinical use of the History, Electrocardiogram, Age, Risk Factors, and Troponin (HEART) scoring has recently been proposed. This study aimed to assess the inter-rater reliability of the HEART score calculated by a large number of Italian emergency physicians.METHODS: The study was conducted in three academic emergency departments using clinical scenarios obtained from medical records of patients with chest pain. Twenty physicians, who took the HEART score course, independently assigned a score to different clinical scenarios, which were randomly administered to the participants, and data were collected and recorded in a spreadsheet by an independent investigator who was blinded to the study’s aim.RESULTS: After applying the exclusion criteria, 53 scenarios were finally included in the analysis. The general inter-rater reliability was good (kappa statistics [κ], 0.63; 95% confidence interval, 0.57 to 0.70), and a good inter-rater agreement for the high- and low-risk classes (HEART score, 7 to 10 and 0 to 3, respectively; κ, 0.60 to 0.73) was observed, whereas a moderate agreement was found for the intermediate-risk class (HEART score, 4 to 6; κ, 0.51). Among the different items of the HEART score, history and electrocardiogram had the worse agreement (κ, 0.37 and 0.42, respectively).CONCLUSION: The HEART score had good inter-rater reliability, particularly among the high- and low-risk classes. The modest agreement for history suggests that major improvements are needed for objectively assessing this component.