Blood Drug Testing

In ER what blood tests are given to heart attack patient to determine minor or major heart attack and meaning?

What are blood tests given in ER to determine whether attack is major or minor one? Meaning of tests results?

Public Comments

1. Well the first thing the hospital, as well as paramedics who respond will do is get a 12-lead ECG. This test can diagnose a heart attack, how it can not rule it out. In other words it can tell you if you are having a heart attack, but it can also not tell that you are NOT having a heart attack. After some medications are given for the chest pain, the hospital will draw blood work for labs. While the doctor will want to various blood tests the ones that tell if you are having or have had a heart attack in the past week or so is called "Cardiac Enzymes" More specifically the levels of the protein, troponin (Tnl, TnT), and or the enzyme creatine phosphokinase (CPK, CK). These chemical levels allow a doctor to definitively diagnose, a myocardial infarction (aka heart attack). It is also important to remember that on average it takes 4-6 hours of muscle damage for these enzymes to start to show up; so initial blood tests showing negative or very low levels of these "markers" do not mean the person has not / is not, suffering a heart attack.
2. Just to add to McRib's excellent answer - we will use the blood tests, usually troponin I or T (in the US) to rule in or out a heart attack (myocardial infarction). Just as McRib noted, it takes several hours for the levels to begin to climb after a heart attack. However, if over the course of 18-24 hours, the cardiac enzymes levels remain normal (low), then we can be fairly certain that a heart attack did not occur. Each lab/hospital has their own specific reference number for a "normal" reading depending on the assay used. In general, as the troponin level climbs it indicates a larger heart attack than a lower result would. It's always best to ask the local doc what numbers their lab uses and what a specific result means to them.