Effectiveness of Point-of-Care High-Sensitivity Troponin Testing in the Emergency Department: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Study objective: To compare the effectiveness of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin (hs-cTn) point-of-care testing to central laboratory hs-cTn measurements when investigating patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with symptoms of acute coronary syndrome.

Methods: The WESTCOR point-of-care study was a single-center prospective randomized controlled trial where we randomized patients presenting with possible acute coronary syndrome in a 1:1 fashion to receive either 0/1-hour centralized hs-cTnT measurements (control) or 0/1-hour point-of-care hs-cTnI testing (intervention). We defined length of stay (LOS) in the ED as the primary endpoint and the minimum clinically meaningful difference as 15 minutes.

Results: We included 1,494 patients in the final analysis, 728 in the point-of-care group, and 766 in the control group. The median (interquartile range) age was 61 (22) years, and 635 (42.5%) were women. Median LOS in the ED was 174 (95% confidence interval [CI] 167 to 181) and 180 (95% CI 175 to 189) minutes in the point-of-care and control group, respectively, resulting in a reduction in median LOS of 6 minutes (95% CI -4 to 17). Acute myocardial infarction, death, or acute revascularization occurred in 83/728 (11.4%) of point-of-care and 72/766 (9.4%) of control patients.

Conclusions: We found that implementing point-of-care hs-cTnI testing in the ED with a 0/1-hour diagnostic algorithm did not lead to a clinically meaningful reduction in ED LOS. We observed no difference in the incidence of myocardial infarction, acute coronary revascularization, or death during 30 days follow-up.