The BEST study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Bedside Evaluation of Sensitive Troponin (BEST) study
IRAS ID
148295
Contact name
Malak Almashali
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 29 days
Research summary
When patients are admitted to hospital with suspected heart attacks they must often undergo blood tests both on arrival and up to 12 hours later before the diagnosis of heart attack can be excluded. With the best available laboratory-based tests for a biomarker called troponin, it may soon be possible to exclude this diagnosis as soon as 3 hours after arrival in the hospital. However, clinicians have to wait for 1-2 hours for the results of laboratory-based tests. Point of care troponin tests are now available to be used at the bedside. It is not known whether use of these point of care tests can exclude the diagnosis of heart attack after only 3 hours of patients presenting to the hospital. If they could, we may be able to safely reduce many unnecessary hospital admissions. We aim to invite patients who present to the Emergency Department with symptoms compatible with a possible heart attack to take part in this observational study. We will take blood samples on arrival and 3 hours later. We plan to store some sample so that we can evaluate new blood tests in future without repeating the entire study. Others will be immediately tested for troponin using a point of care device. We will also collect clinical information about participants (e.g. symptoms, previous history and electrical heart tracings or ECGs). Clinical care will not be affected. Participants will be asked to provide written informed consent. After checking mortality status, we will follow participants up (usually by telephone) after 30 days to determine whether they experienced any relevant clinical events after hospital discharge. The study database and samples will be pseudonymous, using only a unique study number to identify participants.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/NW/1344
Date of REC Opinion
29 Oct 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion