Datasets describing the introduction of the high-sensitive troponin in the emergency department

Chest pain is a common clinical condition in the emergency department. A high sensitive (hs) troponin test assay may help to identify patients with acute coronary syndrome earlier compared to conventional tests but also entails the risk of a high proportion of positive test results in patients without cardiac disease. We assessed the impact of the introduction of the hs-troponin test in clinical practice in an emergency department. We compared December 1, 2009 until November 30, 2010 (standard test period) to December 1, 2010 – the date of the introduction of the hs-troponin assay – until December 31, 2011 (hs troponin test period) of patients presenting with chest pain to one of the ten largest hospitals in Switzerland. We identified electronic health records using the following ICD-10 codes: R06.4 (hyperventilation), R07.1 (chest pain when breathing), R07.2 (precordial pain), R07.3 (other chest pain), and R07.4 (chest pain not specified), I20 (angina pectoris), I21 (acute MI), I22 (recurrent MI), I23 (complications after acute MI), and I24 (other acute ischemic heart disease). Included were all medical records of adult patients (≥18 years) presenting to the ED with chest pain and with ≥1 troponin test. Excluded were records without troponin test, pregnancy, trauma patients/life-threatening conditions, malignant disease, current fracture, renal replacement therapy/severe kidney failure (creatinine clearance <30ml/min/1.73m(2)), patients with disability, or patients disagreeing that their data will be used for scientific purposes. Two researchers screened all records for in-/exclusion. The first presentation for chest pain to the ED and all presentations within the following three months extracted. Presentations after >3 months due to chest pain were defined as a new index visit of a second episode. The extraction form with predefined variables was pilot-tested in 20 records. Additional diagnostic tests were ECG, treadmill test, coronary angiography, MIBI scintigraphy, echocardiography, chest X-ray, computer tomography (CT) of the chest or abdomen, sonography of the abdomen or pleura, gastroscopy, and lung function tests. We compared the number of non-invasive / invasive cardiac diagnostic tests in troponin positive and negative patients and the number of diagnostic tests after the exclusion of patients with STEMI diagnosis. Non-invasive / invasive cardiac tests included treadmill test, coronary angiography, MIBI scintigraphy, and echocardiography. We calculated average monthly tests per patient and compared mean tests per patient between groups. We used a t-test to quantify the evidence for differential number of diagnostic tests per patient in each period. Between-group differences were estimated with 95% confidence intervals. All analyses were performed with the statistical software R for windows [1]. Interpretation of this data can be found in a research article titled Impact of the introduction of high-sensitive troponin assay on the evaluation of chest pain patients in the emergency department: a retrospective study [2]).