Was Flawed in That despite Stratifying

persons into those with myocardial infarction and those without (unstable angina), the death rates were identical after 2 years (11). The prognostic importance of a very low concentration of cardiac troponin has recently been confirmed by Morrow et al. (8), who found that troponin concentrations that were detectable but below that corresponding to an analytical CV of 10% had adverse prognostic significance. Thus the clinical evidence is in disagreement with the proposal from Apple and Wu (1). The sole purpose of laboratory medicine is to provide clinically useful information. In this context, it appears that the clinically useful information is that any detectable cardiac troponin has pathologic significance. With the procedures we have outlined here, clinically significant low concentrations of cardiac troponin can now be defined with some confidence.