What does ck mb test for

Each year millions of Americans go to the emergency room with chest pain, but only a small amount of those people are having a heart attack or other serious, sudden heart problem. This test helps your healthcare provider figure out if you're having a heart attack. Measuring CK-MB used to be a common tool for diagnosing heart attacks, but healthcare providers use it less often today.

Cardiac troponin is now the test of choice for finding a heart attack. This is because cardiac troponin is more specific and more sensitive than CK-MB. You may need this test if your healthcare provider thinks you are having a heart attack. Symptoms of a heart attack often include:. Pain or discomfort in the chest, such as a squeezing sensation or feeling of fullness.

Your healthcare provider may also order a test to measure cardiac troponin CTn. This test is more often used than CK-MB because it more specifically shows heart damage. Your healthcare provider may also order an electrocardiogram ECG. This is done to measure electrical activity in your heart and help diagnose a heart attack. Test results may vary depending on your age, sex, health history, the method used for the test, and other things.

Your test results may not mean you have a problem. Ask your healthcare provider what your test results mean for you. Levels of CK-MB do not rise in your blood within the first 4 to 6 hours after a heart attack. You may need to have repeated tests to see if you've had a heart attack.

Design and implement a hospital-wide education campaign. Measure use of the test and patient care quality and safety outcomes before and after the intervention. As far back as , the American College of Cardiology and the European Society of Cardiology identified cardiac troponin as the ideal biomarker due to its high sensitivity for detecting injury to the heart.

John Commins is a content specialist and online news editor for HealthLeaders, a Simplify Compliance brand. View the discussion thread. Sinus congestion, runny nose and sore throat are symptoms of becoming infected with the delta variant. However, these enzyme kinetics were determined using an insensitive electrophoretic method. In , most laboratories began measuring CK-MB mass instead of enzyme activity. CK-MB mass assays are able to measure small, but significant changes during the early hours following onset of chest pain.

In , a study of consecutive patients admitted to a Midwestern hospital for evaluation of acute myocardial infarction were reviewed to determine how quickly CK-MB becomes positive.