Spit Test Promises to Diagnose Heart Attacks in Just 10 Minutes
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
Spit test promises to diagnose heart attacks in just 10 minutes:
New preliminary research is suggesting a simple saliva test can detect the presence of a protein biomarker known to signal the occurrence of a heart attack in just 10 minutes. If this prototype test is validated in future studies it could dramatically accelerate the speed at which patients with cardiovascular problems can be diagnosed and treated.
During a myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack, levels of a protein called troponin rapidly rise in a patient's blood stream. Not every heart attack is immediately apparent. Symptoms such as chest pain, nausea and fatigue can be frustratingly non-specific, so when a patient presents to an emergency room with these signs doctors will quickly perform a blood test to measure troponin levels. The blood test generally takes around an hour to return a result.
[...] Saliva samples were taken from 32 heart attack patients with confirmed blood troponin results. Control saliva samples were also taken from 13 healthy subjects.
The initial results proved promising, with the processed saliva samples from the heart attack patients testing positive for troponin 84 percent of the time. Only six percent of the unprocessed saliva samples tested positive for troponin, suggesting the processing procedure is vital in concentrating the saliva samples for effective results. It is unclear at this stage what the "processing" procedure entails, or how easy and affordable it is.
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