Cardiac Marker Changes

Cardiac markers are used in the diagnosis and risk stratification of patients with chest pain and suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS).^[1]The cardiac troponins, in particular, have become the cardiac markers of choice for patients with ACS. Cardiac troponin is central to the definition of acute myocardial infarction (MI)^[2]in the consensus guidelines from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC).^{[3, 4, 5]}

For a more comprehensive discussion of cardiac markers, see the Medscape article Cardiac Markers.

Table 1. Cardiac Marker Changes Over Time (Open Table in a new window)

Marker	Onset (hours)	Peak (hours)	Duration
Troponin I	3-12	10-24	3-10 days
Troponin T	3-12	12-48	5-14 days
Creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB)	4-6	24	2-3 days
Myoglobin	2-4	6-12	24-36 hours