Risk stratification value of HEART score combined with serial cardiac troponin in emergency patients with chest pain / 中华急诊医学杂志

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.