[Current characteristics of methods for determining cardiac troponins and their diagnostic value: a mini-review]

The expansion and discovery of new diagnostic possibilities for the use of many biomarkers of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), including cardiospecific troponin isoforms (cTnI, cTnT), is due to improved laboratory methods for their determination. Throughout a long history of the creation and improvement of immunochemical methods for the determination of cTnI and cTnT, significant changes were observed in the concept of biology and its diagnostic value as CVD biomarkers. The obsolete methods of detection of cTnI, cTnT, named low sensitivity and moderate, were distinguished by a relatively low sensitivity, which led to the confirmation late in the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and, therefore, such methods were gradually replaced by new methods of high and moderate sensitivity, such as definitions of methods, ultra-sensitive (hs-cTnI, hs-cTnT). With the introduction of hs-cTnI and hs-cTnT in clinical practice, the possibility of early diagnosis and exclusion of AMI through the evaluation of the kinetics of the concentration of hs-cTnI and hs-cTnT in the first hours (0-1 hour, 0-2 hours, 0-3 hours) from the moment the patient enters the emergency room. In addition, some of our ideas about the biology of cardiac troponins have changed, and promising new opportunities for their use in medicine have emerged. This manuscript analyzes the key analytical characteristics of hs-cTnI and hs-cTnT detection methods compared to moderately sensitive methods, and reports on new biological data and some new diagnostic possibilities for the use of hs-cTnI and hs-cTnT in modern clinical practice.