Weekly and 90-Minute Biological Variations in Cardiac Troponin T and Cardiac Troponin I in Hemodialysis Patients and Healthy Controls

BACKGROUND: Myocardial infarction (MI) is diagnosed by the finding of a single cardiac troponin value above the 99th percentile and a significant time-dependent change in cardiac troponin concentration. The aim of this study was to determine the 90-min and weekly biological variations, the reference change value (RCV), and the index of individuality (II) of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) (Roche Diagnostics) and hs-cTnI (Abbott Diagnostics) in patients receiving hemodialysis (HD) and in healthy individuals. METHOD: Blood samples were collected from 19 HD patients (on an HD-free day) and 20 healthy individuals at 90-min intervals over a 6-h period (between 08:30 and 14:30) and before the midweek HD treatment for 10 weeks. The within-person variation (CVi), between-person variation, RCV, and II were calculated. RESULTS: During the 6-h sampling period, the concentrations of hs-cTnT (both groups) and hs-cTnI (HD patients only) decreased on average by 0.8% to 1.7% per hour, respectively. These declining trends were included in the calculation of a 90-min asymmetric RCV: -8%/+5% in HD patients (hs-cTnT), -18%/+21% in HD patients (hs-cTnI), -27%/+29% in healthy individuals (hs-cTnT), and -39%/+64% in healthy individuals (hs-cTnI). The II was low in both groups for both assays. The weekly CVi values were approximately 8% (hs-cTnT) and 15% (hs-cTnI) in both groups. CONCLUSIONS: When using a cardiac troponin change of 20%-50% to diagnose an MI, the false-positive rate is likely to be lower for the hs-cTnT assay than for the hs-cTnI assay. The low II suggests that use of a diagnostic cutoff value can be omitted.