TROPOnin FRAGMentation in Myocardial Injury Study

Troponin T (TnT) is a part of the troponin protein complex that principally exists in cardiac and skeletal muscle cells and is widely used as diagnostic biomarker for myocardial injury and, thus, myocardial infarction (MI). Elevated TnT levels can, however, be observed in the presence of other clinical conditions such as heart failure, sepsis and kidney failure and the contemporary high-sensitivity TnT test may yield false positive results when performing diagnostics for suspected MI in these patients.

Recent data have demonstrated that in the presence of MI, TnT gradually undergoes fragmentation into smaller fragments. It has been suggested that in the presence of e.g. chronic kidney disease or physical exercise the released TnT is predominantly in the form of smaller fragments.

However, the clinical significance of TnT fragmentation is unknown and, thus, we sought to investigate the prevalence of fragmentation of TnT in different patient cohorts.