CARDIAC TROPONIN-I AND MINOR CARDIAC DAMAGE - BIOCHEMICAL MARKERS IN A CLINICAL-MODEL OF MYOCARDIAL LESIONS

Radiofrequency (RF) catheter ablation is the curative treatment of cho ice for many cardiac arrhythmias. After RF ablation there is always a small localized endomyocardial necrosis, necessary to abolish the arrh ythmia. We designed this study to determine the serum concentrations o f several cardiac markers in patients who underwent RF catheter ablati on. The study shows a higher frequency of increase of serum cardiac tr oponin I (cTnI) than of creatine kinase (CK), the CK MB isoenzyme (CK- MB), or myoglobin. A pathological value of cTnI was found in 47 of 51 patients (92%) in the ablation group. The area under the ROC curve for cTnI was 0.9375, significantly higher than for the other biochemical markers (0.86, 0.76, and 0.75 for CK-MB, myoglobin, and CK, respective ly), with P < 0.05. We conclude that the serum concentration of cTnI i s the best biochemical marker for detecting the minor myocardial damag e produced by RF ablation.