Temporal Evolution of Serum Concentrations of High‐Sensitivity Cardiac Troponin During 1 Year After Acute Coronary Syndrome Admission

BACKGROUND: Detailed insights in temporal evolution of high‐sensitivity cardiac troponin following acute coronary syndrome (ACS) are currently missing. We aimed to describe and compare the post‐ACS kinetics of high‐sensitivity cardiac troponin I (hs‐cTnI) and high‐sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs‐cTnT), and to determine their intra‐ and interindividual variation in clinically stable patients. METHODS AND RESULTS: We determined hs‐cTnI (Abbott) and hs‐cTnT (Roche) in 1507 repeated blood samples, derived from 191 patients with ACS (median, 8/patient) who remained free from adverse cardiac events during 1‐year follow‐up. Post‐ACS kinetics were studied by linear mixed‐effect models. Using the samples collected in the 6‐ to 12‐month post‐ACS time frame, patients were then considered to have chronic coronary syndrome. We determined (differences between) the average hs‐cTnI and average hs‐cTnT concentration, and the intra‐ and interindividual variation for both biomarkers. Compared with hs‐cTnT, hs‐cTnI peaked higher (median 3506 ng/L versus 494 ng/L; P<0.001) and was quicker below the biomarker‐specific upper reference limit (16 versus 19 days; P<0.001). In the post–6‐month samples, hs‐cTnI and hs‐cTnT showed modest correlation (r (spearman)=0.60), whereas the average hs‐cTnT concentration was 5 times more likely to be above the upper reference limit than hs‐cTnI. The intraindividual variations of hs‐cTnI and hs‐cTnT were 14.0% and 18.1%, while the interindividual variations were 94.1% and 75.9%. CONCLUSIONS: Hs‐cTnI peaked higher after ACS and was quicker below the upper reference limit. In the post–6‐month samples, hs‐cTnI and hs‐cTnT were clearly not interchangeable, and average hs‐cTnT concentrations were much more often above the upper reference limit than hs‐cTnI. For both markers, the within‐patient variation fell largely below beween‐patient variation. REGISTRATION: URL: https://www.trialregister.nl; unique identifiers: NTR1698 and NTR1106.