The new blood test that can quickly detect early signs of a heart attack

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

A new blood test that diagnoses heart attacks in minutes rather than hours has been announced - and British families may soon have it in their homes.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in the US hope to incorporate the test into a tool for first responders and people at home to save lives. "Heart attacks require immediate medical intervention in order to improve patient outcomes, but while early diagnosis is critical, it can also be very challenging—and near impossible outside of a clinical setting," said lead author Peng Zheng. "We were able to invent a new technology that can quickly and accurately establish if someone is having a heart attack." Zheng and senior author Ishan Barman develop diagnostic tools through biophotonics, using laser light to detect biomarkers, which are bodily responses to conditions including disease. READ MORE: 'I have taken 100,000 tablets for my horrific illness - but this one will change everything' They used the technology to find the earliest signs in the blood that someone was having a heart attack.

Though an estimated 800,000-plus people have heart attacks every year just in the United States, heart attacks remain one of the trickiest conditions to diagnose, with symptoms that vary widely and biological signals that can be subtle and easy to miss in the early stages of an attack, when medical intervention can do the most good.

People suspected of having heart attacks typically are given a combination of tests to confirm the diagnosis—usually starting with electrocardiograms to measure the electrical activity of the heart, a procedure that takes about five minutes, and blood tests to detect the hallmarks of a heart attack, where lab work can take at least an hour and often has