Background:

Patients with diabetes usually have higher troponin levels than the general population.

Objective:

The aim of our study was to evaluate the performance of the European Society of Cardiology algorithm which uses high sensitivity cardiac troponin levels on admission and after 1 hour in these patients.

Methods:

A total of 1,140 patients with chest pain and ECG without ST-segment elevation were evaluated. The algorithm stratifies patients in three risk groups: rule-out, observe and rule-in. We evaluated the performance of the algorithm to predict myocardial infarction at 30 days.

Results:

A total of 124 patients (10.8%) had diabetes. None of the patients in the rule-out group (40.3%) presented myocardial infarction at 30 days. In the rule-in group (23.4%), the event occurred in 82.8% of cases and in 6.8% in the observe group (36.3%). Sensitivity and negative predictive value were similar in patients with and without diabetes (100% vs. 98.5%, p= 0.865 and 100% vs. 99.8%, p=0.44), but the proportion of patients in the rule-out group was lower in diabetics (40.3% vs. 72.1%, p<0.001). The accuracy of the algorithm to rule in patients was evaluated by its specificity which was lower in diabetics, but the positive predictive value was greater (90.9% vs. 97.2%, p<0.001 and 83% vs. 76%, p<0.001). The proportion of patients in the rule-in group was higher in diabetics (23% vs. 8.6%, p<0.001).

Conclusion:

The use of the algorithm in patients with diabetes revealed high sensitivity and negative predictive value to rule out, which was similar to that of the general population. Regarding the rule-in group, it had lower specificity but high positive predictive value. This performance makes the algorithm a useful tool for daily practice.

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