Comparison of Two Commercially Available Immunoassays for the Measurement of Bovine Cardiac Troponin I in Cattle With Induced Myocardial Injury

Abstract

Background: Multiple cardiac troponin I (cTnI) immunoassays are commercially available. Overall, assays have not been standardized, and inter-assay differences in the detection of the analyte cardiac troponin I can be clinically relevant. Objective: To compare the diagnostic accuracy of the commercially available Abbott i-STAT ® 1 cTnI immunoassay (i-STAT) and the previously validated ADVIA Centaur TnI-Ultra immunoassay (Centaur) in cattle. Hypothesis: There will be significant differences in bovine serum cTnI results measured by the Centaur and i-STAT methods. Animals: Ten dairy cows with experimentally induced myocardial injury due to monensin administration. Thirty apparently healthy dairy cows with no history of monensin exposure served as controls. Methods: Blood was collected at various time points after administration of a single dose of monensin (20 to 50 mg/kg) via orogastric tube. A total of 112 blood samples were collected. Cardiac TnI concentration was analyzed with the two methods and the association between methods analyzed via linear regression. Bland-Altman analysis to evaluate agreement between methods was performed on samples divided into groups (cTnI < 1.0 ng/mL and cTnI ≥ 1.0 ng/mL). Results: Analyzer results were linearly correlated with each other (R 2 = 0.931). Samples with cTnI concentrations <1.0 ng/mL had a bias of −0.13 ± 0.20 ng/mL and samples with cTnI concentrations >1.0 ng/mL had a bias of −9.81 ± 13.26 ng/mL. Conclusions and clinical importance: The results of this study reveal that cTnI concentrations determined with the i-STAT are systematically lower compared to the concentrations determined by the Centaur.

Congestive heart failure secondary to both congenital and acquired defects in a Guernsey heifer

“…15 In healthy lactating dairy cows, the median cTnI performed using a point-of-care i-STAT 1 immunoassay is reported to be 20 pg/mL, with a range of 20-50 pg/mL at a 90% confidence interval. 7 Another study compared this point-of-care method to the ADVIA Centaur TnI-Ultra immunoassay and found that while the i-STAT typically yielded a systematically lower result with marked elevations in cTnI, this may not be clinically significant as normal cattle are expected to have cTnI values less than 50 pg/mL 7,16 Though this heifer was not yet lactating, its cTnI value was more than four times the high end of this range, suggesting that active myocardial injury was likely. While this indicates active myocardial damage is occurring, it does not specify the cause of the injury, making treatment decisions difficult based on this marker alone.…”