The cardiac marker field, dormant for years, is changing so rapidly that studies done five years ago are completely out of date. Interest in the field is keen for good reason: current markers are increasingly significant in guiding treatment and a lot of promising new markers are in development. Within five to ten years, the kinds of markers used to categorize heart disease will change significantly. And tests we don't yet know of today will almost certainly have a role in determining when to give specific therapies.
That's the message from E. Magnus Ohman, MD, chief of the division of cardiology at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Heart Center and an expert on cardiac markers. He...