Postsurgical ICU Patients May Have Higher Death Risk

Researchers studied 869 surgical ICU patients, excluding those who had previously had heart surgery, to determine the significance of moderate troponin elevations. They found that those with mildly elevated troponin levels who were receiving beta-blockers and aspirin had better survival rates than untreated patients. The researchers hypothesized that a shortage of oxygen to the heart, short of heart attack, increases blood levels of troponin I in proportion to the decrease in oxygen.

"Since completing this research, we have been monitoring troponin levels more carefully,” said senior author Gregory J. Beilman, M.D., associate professor of surgery and anesthesia at the University of Minnesota (St. Paul/Minneapolis, USA). "For mild elevations, I order noninvasive tests such as an echocardiogram to see if there is any abnormal cardiac function.”