BET 1: Prehospital cardiac troponin testing to 'rule out' acute coronary syndromes using point of care assays

Abstract

A shortcut review of the literature was carried out to establish whether prehospital point of care (POC) troponin tests are reliable and accurate enough to detect acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in adult patients. Nine papers were found to be relevant to the clinical question following the below-described search strategies. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of those best papers are tabulated. It is concluded that based on the currently available evidence, POC troponin assays are insufficiently sensitive to 'rule out' ACS in the prehospital environment.