The effect of troponin values on prognosis in acute pulmonary embolism

Background: The objective of this study is to evaluate the clinical usefulness of cardiac troponin levels in acute pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) prognosis. Methods: Thorax computed tomography (CT) angiography was performed and reported by the radiologist as pulmonary embolism and 193 patients older than 18 years of age who were considered PTE by the physician of chest diseases were included in the study. Patients diagnosed with PTE were divided into two groups as those who died within 30 days and did not die within 30 days. As a result of the statistically significant relationship between troponin and mortality, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to determine the prognosis level of troponin and appropriate sensitivity and specificity cut-off values were determined. Results: We determined that troponin levels of patients diagnosed with PTE in the emergency department were statistically significantly higher in the group with mortality (p=0.031). Since the area under the curve (AUC) value was calculated as 0.636, troponin value was found to have a weak-medium significance in terms of predicting 30-day mortality. Conclusions: Troponin values are statistically significantly higher in patients with a one-month period than the survivor group in this period. However, we concluded that troponin values are not clinically usable as mortality markers due to their low sensitivity and specificity rates. However, due to its significant relationship with increased mortality, patients with PTE with high troponin values should be hospitalized and monitored closely.