According to The Heart Foundation, more than 920,000 Americans will suffer a heart attack this year, and many of these will occur without warning. But researchers from The Scripps Research Institute in California say they have created a blood test which may be able to predict whether patients are at high risk of heart attack.
The research team, led by Prof. Pete Kuhn, says that at present there is no test available that can predict the occurrence of a heart attack with good accuracy.
But they say their novel test, details of which have been recently published in the journal Physical Biology, has so far proved successful in identifying which patients are undergoing treatment for a recent heart attack and which patients are healthy.
Test identifies endothelial cells in blood
The new test uses a "fluid biopsy" technique. It works by identifying the presence of endothelial cells - which line the artery walls - in the bloodstream.
According to the researchers, endothelial cells that circulate in the bloodstream have been associated with ongoing heart attacks.
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