Clinical Determinants of Myocardial Injury, Detectable and Serial Troponin Levels among Patients with Hypertensive Crisis

Introduction

There is a high prevalence of hypertensive crisis with myocardial injury, as evidenced by elevation in cardiac troponin levels. The risk factors predisposing patients to developing a myocardial injury, detectable troponin, and increase in serial troponin in this population are not known.

Methods

A retrospective study was designed to include all patients, presenting to the emergency room, diagnosed with hypertensive crisis, using International Classification of Diseases, 10^th revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) codes between 2016-2018 (n=467). Logistic regression was used to determine the important predictors of myocardial injury evidenced by troponin elevation >99^th percentile of upper reference level (URL), detectable troponin (> 0.015 ng/ml), and increase in serial troponin levels.

Results

The 99^th percentile of the initial troponin level among all patients was 0.433 ng/ml. A total of 15% had a myocardial injury, and the significant risk factors associated with it were body mass index (BMI) < 30 kg/m2 (odds ratio [OR] 0.50, confidence interval [CI] 0.28-0.89), congestive heart failure (CHF; OR 4.28, CI 2.21-8.25) and prior use of aspirin (OR 1.98, CI 1.08-3.63). About 35% had detectable troponin, and BMI < 30 kg/m² (OR 0.62, CI 0.40-0.97), CHF (OR 3.49, CI 2.06-5.9), elevated creatinine (OR 1.17, CI 1.02-1.34) and age <61 years (OR 0.59, CI 0.38-0.94) were associated with it. The factors associated with an increase in serial troponin were BMI < 30 Kg/m2 (OR 0.56, CI 0.36-0.87), CHF (OR 1.78, CI 1.06-3.0), coronary artery disease (CAD; OR 2.08, CI 1.28-3.36) and non-Caucasian race (OR 0.52, CI 0.29-0.93).

Conclusion

About one-third of patients with the hypertensive crisis have detectable troponin. Still, among these, less than half have troponin levels >99^th percentile URL, and the majority of these patients have minimal changes in serial troponin. Low BMI was associated with higher initial and serial troponin levels, and this obesity paradox was stronger among females and older patients.

Development, implementation, and initial evaluation of a foundational open interoperability standard for oncology treatment planning and summarization

OBJECTIVE

Develop and evaluate a foundational oncology-specific standard for the communication and coordination of care throughout the cancer journey, with early-stage breast cancer as the use case.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Owing to broad uptake of the Health Level Seven (HL7) Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture (C-CDA) by health information exchanges and large provider organizations, we developed an implementation guide in congruence with C-CDA. The resultant product was balloted through the HL7 process and subsequently implemented by two groups: the Health Story Project (Health Story) and the Athena Breast Health Network (Athena).

RESULTS

The HL7 Implementation Guide for CDA, Release 2: Clinical Oncology Treatment Plan and Summary, DSTU Release 1 (eCOTPS) was successfully balloted and published as a Draft Standard for Trial Use (DSTU) in October 2013. Health Story successfully implemented the eCOTPS the 2014 meeting of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) in a clinical vignette. During the evaluation and implementation of eCOPS, Athena identified two practical concerns: (1) the need for additional CDA templates specific to their use case; (2) the many-to-many mapping of Athena-defined data elements to eCOTPS.

DISCUSSION

Early implementation of eCOTPS has demonstrated successful vendor-agnostic transmission of oncology-specific data. The modularity enabled by the C-CDA framework ensures the relatively straightforward expansion of the eCOTPS to include other cancer subtypes. Lessons learned during the process will strengthen future versions of the standard.

CONCLUSION

eCOTPS is the first oncology-specific CDA standard to achieve HL7 DSTU status. Oncology standards will improve care throughout the cancer journey by allowing the efficient transmission of reliable, meaningful, and current clinical data between the many involved stakeholders.