Questions & Answers
What's an IVD
IVD means an in vitro diagnostic device, it's for rapid diagnostic solutions an is built in a special cassette. In these device is the analyzer strip with one or more biomarker based on konjugat. There are one point for the blood and the buffer. At the window of the cassette are two or more points with letters like "C" or "T" or the name of the bio marker like h-FABP. The "C" is the control line for the function of the strip. The "T" or others are the line for a positive result. If there is no line, the result of the test is negative. That's it.
What's h-FABP
Heart-type Fatty Acid-Binding Protein (H-FABP) is a small cytoplasmic protein (15 kDa) released from cardiac myocytes following an ischemic episode. Like the nine other distinct FABPs that have been identified, H-FABP is involved in active fatty acid metabolism where it transports fatty acids from the cell membrane to mitochondria for oxidation.
The intracellular fatty acid-binding proteins (FABPs) belongs to a multigene family. FABPs are divided into at least three distinct types, namely the hepatic-, intestinal- and cardiac-type. H-FABP is a highly sensitive biomarker for the early diagnosis of AMI. H-FABP as early marker and cTnI as late marker would be the ideal combination to cover the complete diagnostic window for AMI.
Shortly, approx. 20 minutes after an acute heart attack, f-FABP can be detected in the patient's blood count with the IVD h-FABP
What's Troponin
Cardiac troponin is a protein complex from the troponin group. It consists of the three subunits cT, cI and C (T = tropomyosin-binding, I = inhibitory, C = calcium-binding), of which cT and cI are specifically expressed in the heart muscle. The detection of the two subunits is therefore used for diagnostic purposes. Immunassays are used. The normal range is below 0.1 ng / ml. The increase in the blood serum can be detected about three hours after the start of the infarction, reaches its maximum after about 20 hours and returns to normal after one to two weeks; in infarctions that do not affect the entire thickness of the heart muscle wall (NSTEMI), after 48–72 hours Less specific parameters for heart muscle damage are myoglobin, creatine kinase, GOT and LDH. Creatine kinase also increases much more slowly.
Troponin is only visible after about 4 hours after the test, but it is one of the most common methods of detecting a heart attack today. Unfortunately the heart attack that has just occurred cannot be recognized with troponin.
Therefore, the symbiosis between the use of h-FABP and troponin is the better diagnosis and the cardiac muscle damage has been shown to be reduced to a low level.