British study says more sensitive detection techniques could reduce heart disease deaths

28 (UPI) -- Using a new, more sensitive blood testing technique could detect more people at high risk ofheartdisease, which could significantly reduce heart disease deaths among potential patients, a new British study saysis now generally used to determine the risk of heart disease by detecting the level of troponin in the body's bloodTroputoprotein is a substance released when myocardial cells are damaged, so their levels indicate the risk of heart diseaseresearchers at the University of Edinburgh and others report in the new issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association that the threshold set by conventional blood tests to detect troponin levels is too high to miss out on some people at high risk of heart diseasein this study, researchers used a new, more sensitive blood testing technique that can detect the lowest levels of troponin as low as a quarter of conventional testsA group-comparison trial of more than 2,000 volunteers with symptoms of pain and other symptoms at the heart site showed that the number of people at high risk of heart disease was higher than the team using the new test ingressAs a result of this attention to treatment, the heart disease mortality rate of volunteers using new techniques was reduced by half in the following year compared to the control groupNicholas Mills, a researcher at the, said there had been some debate in the past about the benefits of lowering the troponin testing threshold, and the study provided strong evidence that a more sensitive blood-testing technique in the health system could significantly reduce heart disease mortality among potential patients