TnI-Ultra assay measurements in cancer patients: Comparison with the conventional assay and clinical implication

The serial monitoring of cardiac troponin represents an effective approach for the early identification, assessment, and monitoring of chemotherapy-induced cardiac injury. Over the last few years new generations of troponin assays, referred to as sensitive and high sensitivity assays, able to detect very low concentrations of troponin, have been progressively released on different platforms. Some studies have assessed the comparability of the cTnI measurements with the new assays versus the conventional ones, but none of these in the oncological population. We compared the cTnI results determined on Stratus CS and ADVIA Centaur CP System in 70 breast cancer patients, for a total of 327 samples collected during different cycles of treatment. Correlation (Spearman = 0.732) and agreement (91.4%) between the assays were good (244 concordant negatives and 55 concordant positives), with a frequency of 8.6% discordant results among the cTnI measurements. Despite the well-known lack in the harmonization and standardization of the currently commercially available cTnI methods, we found a good clinical concordance of cTnI determination on both systems.