Diagnostic Performance of Prehospital Point-of-Care Troponin Tests to Rule Out Acute Myocardial Infarction: A Systematic Review.

INTRODUCTION: Chest pain is one of the most common reasons for 999 calls and transfers to the emergency department (ED). In these patients, acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is often the diagnosis that clinicians are seeking to exclude. However, only a minority of those patients have AMI, causing a substantial financial burden to health services. Cardiac troponin (cTn) is the reference standard biomarker for the diagnosis of AMI. Several commercially available point-of-care (POC) cTn assays are portable and could feasibly be used in an ambulance. The aim of this paper is to systematically review existing evidence for the use of POC cTn assays in the prehospital setting to rule out AMI.

METHODS: A systematic search was conducted on EMBASE, MEDLINE, and CINAHL Plus databases, reference lists, and relevant grey literature, including combinations of the relevant terms. Papers published in English language since the year 2000 were eligible for inclusion. A narrative synthesis of the evidence was then undertaken.

RESULTS: The initial search and cross-referencing revealed a total of 350 papers, of which 243 were excluded. Seven papers were included in the systematic literature review.

CONCLUSION: Current evidence does not support the use of POC troponin assays to exclude AMI due to issues with diagnostic accuracy and insufficient high-quality evidence.