By Stephen Matthews Health Editor For Mailonline
Published: 08:53 GMT, 14 January 2019 | Updated: 15:49 GMT, 15 January 2019
45 shares
10
View
comments
A cheap blood test can accurately predict an adult's risk of suffering a heart attack a decade in advance.
Doctors in A&E units across the UK already use troponin tests to examine if a patient has experienced a heart attack.
But a troponin test that predicts the risk of a heart attack in patients 'months to years in advance' has been given a CE mark.
Doctors in A&E units across the UK already use troponin tests to examine if a patient has experienced a heart attack
Abbott said its High Sensitive Troponin-I blood test was the first of its kind when it was given such approval by regulators in September.
The test has been included in Nice's accelerated access programme. Scientific studies have shown similar tests are 100 per cent accurate.
This fast-tracks the tests, meaning they could be rolled out across the NHS and offered in the midlife MOTs in the next few years.
Current 10-year heart attack predictions are based on a tool called QRISK, which jots up several risk factors, including lifestyle, age and weight.
But the newly approved test measures for proteins in the blood called troponins, released by damaged heart cells.
Professor Nick Mills, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh, who has led trials of the tests, praised its effectiveness in an interview with The Times.
He said: 'The technology to measure
