A simple blood test can predict the heart attack:
Scientists claim they are very close to developing a simple and inexpensive blood test which could detect a heart attack two to three weeks
before it happens, a breakthrough which they say could prove “the holy grail of heart medicine”.
US researchers have found oddly-shaped blood cells in heart attack patients, indicating that a blood test could help predict whether a patient is at risk of an imminent cardiac emergency.
The study by the Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) found that the endothelial blood cells from heart attack patients are abnormally large and misshapen, sometimes appearing with multiple nuclei. That could make them reliable indicators of an impending heart attack, according to the study published this week in Science Translational Medicine.
Most heart attacks begin with the gradual cracking of an artery that has been damaged by smoking, high blood pressure or other factors. After several weeks, a blood clot seals the damage, blocking the blood supply in the process and causing a heart attack. Current tests of heart health are unable to pick up this cracking.
In the new test, the researchers focused on endothelial cells that are released when arteries crack in the lead-up to a heart attack.
They compared blood samples from heart attack patients and healthy people. This revealed differences in cells that lined the inside of the arteries before breaking off into the bloodstream.
In heart-attack patients, these circulating endothelial cells were found to be much more numerous and abnormally large and mis-shapen.
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