The role of cardiac troponin T in detection of cardiac damage and long term mortality in children with chronic renal disease

Abstract

In this study, we aimed to evaluate the role of cardiac troponin T (cTnT)in detecting myocardial involvement in children with chronic kidney disease(CKD) and to investigate whether it contributes to predicting cardiacinvolvement and mortality at follow-up. Echocardiographic evaluations wereperformed on a sample of 69 patients, of which 33 (47.8%) were female, withgrade 3, 4 and 5 chronic renal failure and end-stage renal failure. Patients withnormal cTnT levels and patients with high cTnT levels were compared. cTnTlevels were observed to be high in 13 (19%) of the 69 patients. The comparisonbetween the patients with normal cTnT levels and patients with high cTnTlevels with regards to the echocardiographic findings revealed that in thelatter group, the average ejection fraction and fractional shortening levelswere lower (p=0.003 and p=0.013, respectively), the detection rate of leftventricular systolic dysfunction was 5.5 times higher and the rate of detectionof left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) was 3 times higher (p=0.004, p=0.011).In this study, it was shown that it is possible to obtain information aboutcardiac effects by examining the serum cTnT level before clinical symptomsoccur in children with CKD, and that cTnT can be used for screening purposes.