Is Troponin a Critical Value?
Critical values should reflect unexpected life threatening values that may otherwise get missed, if not verbally communicated. Troponins are ONLY ordered in the context of suspected myocardial injury. Therefore, abnormal elevated troponin values are never unexpected.
Any detectable level of troponin above the upper limit of the reference range is medically significant. No one has clearly defined what level of troponin is critical or life threatening. The medical significance of a particular troponin value depends on the individual patient.
For these reasons, I do not believe that troponin should be included in the hospital’s critical value list.
