Simple saliva test gives speedy heart attack diagnosis

Scientists in the U.S. have developed a simple saliva test which will quickly show if a person is having or about to have a heart attack.

The test involves a person spitting into a tube and the saliva is then transferred to credit card-sized lab card.

The card is then inserted into an analyzer rather like an ATM card, which determines the patient's heart status in as little as 15 minutes.

The card harbors a nano-biochip which contains a standard battery of cardiac biomarkers and can rapidly show whether or not a person is currently having a heart attack or is at high risk of having a heart attack in the near future.

Dr. John T. McDevitt, a biochemist at the University of Texas at Austin and his colleagues developed the nano-biochip sensor that is biochemically programmed to detect sets of proteins in saliva with the saliva heart attack diagnostic test.

Dr. McDevitt says proteins found in the saliva have the ability to rapidly classify potential heart attacks and the card could be used in ambulances, restaurants, neighborhood drug stores, or other places in the community to quickly tell if a person is having a heart attack.

Dr. McDevitt says a study involving 56 people who had a heart attack and 59 healthy "controls" who had not, found the test could distinguish between heart attack patients and controls with similar diagnostic accuracy as that of standard blood tests.

McDevitt says many heart attack patients, especially women, experience nonspecific symptoms, or have normal EKG readings, which makes a timely diagnosis difficult.

Dr. McDevitt says in the small trial one third of the patients were picked up with so-called 'silent heart attacks' on EKG.

Such patients would normally go the emergency department and have their blood drawn and tested for enzymes that are indicative of a heart attack which could take an hour to an hour and a half.

He says the saliva test could be used in conjunction with the EKG and to speed up the diagnosing of heart attacks that are silent on EKG.

The team made use of the recent identification of a number of blood serum proteins that are significant contributors to, and indicators of, cardiac disease and they say even though their technology is still in the clinical testing phase, it has strong commercial potential.

McDevitt says larger and more refined studies are now planned.