Many investigation have been made to find specific marker for biochemical assessment of myocardial injury. This prospective study was designed to evaluated the diagnostic efficiency of biochemical markers in detecting myocardial damage in patients undergoing open heart surgery. For this purpose cardiac troponin T and CK-MB were compared.

The study group consisted of 20 patients who were undergoing open heart surgery. There were undergoing open heart surgery. There were 16 male and 4 women with a mean age of 50.35 ± 3.32. The control group consisted of 15 patients (6 male and 9 women with a mean age of 42.8 ± 4.43) who undergoing peripheral surgery. Blood samples were collected before the operation; at the beginning and the end of the cardiopulmonary bypass; at the end of the operation; 4, 8, 12 and 24 hours after surgery; and then once daily until the fifth postoperative day.

There was no mortality during the study. In study group, preoperative transmural myocardial infarction was detected in one patient and subendocardial infarction in another one. There was no myocardial infarction in control group.

Serial intraoperative and postoperative CK-MB values in both group showed significant increase according to preoperative levels while cardiac troponin T values increased significantly only in cardiopulmonary bypass group. In corresponding measurement times, the ratio of troponin T levels between the groups were higher than the ratio of CK-MB levels.

As a conclusion, this study proved that cardiac troponin T is a more specific and sensitive marker for myocardial injury than CK-MB. Measurements of cardiac troponin T leves in open heart surgery may be a useful method for comparing different myocardial protection techniques.

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