Background: Myeloperoxidase (MPO) has been listed as a potentially useful risk marker in acute coronary syndrome. However, its clinical utility in patients with acute chest pain is not yet defined.
Design and methods: MPO (Architect, Abbott Diagnostics) was measured in 120 healthy controls and 303 chest pain patients who had been admitted to the coronary care units of three Swedish hospitals.
Results: Chest pain patents had significantly higher median MPO levels compared to healthy controls (120.6 vs. 78. 9 pmol/L; p<0.001). However, MPO was not useful for the diagnosis of myocardial infarction (c-statistics 0.61 [95% CI 0.54-0.67]), and Cox regression analysis revealed no independent association between MPO and mortality (adjusted hazard ratio 1.3 [95% CI 0.8-2.0]) or the composite endpoint (adjusted hazard ratio 1.1 [95% CI 0.8-1.5]) after a median follow-up of 4.9 years.
Conclusions: MPO provided no clinically relevant information in the present population of chest pain patients.
(c) 2009 The Canadian Society of Clinical Chemists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.