Clinical Significance

   It is useful for : Excluding the diagnosis of acute coronary syndromes, Explaining troponin T elevations related to skeletal myopathy and/or assay interferences.

Specimen

   Plasma

Stability

   Frozen (preferred) : 180 days

   Refrigerated : 48 hours

   Ambient : 4 hours

Reference Range

   < 0.3 ng/ml

Interpretation

   Elevations in cardiac troponin T (cTnT) can be due to skeletal muscle disease and not cardiac disease in certain circumstances. One way to unmask such elevations is to measure cardiac troponin I (cTnI), which will be normal in that situation. In addition, at times there are interferences that can cause spurious increases or decreases in cTnT values. Conceptually, these same interferences can occur with cTnI but in any given case, the likelihood of having both assays be confounded in that way is highly unusual. Thus, potential false-positive results would be unmasked by a normal cTnI and false-negative results by an elevated value.