Towards evidence based emergency medicine: Best BETs from the Manchester Royal Infirmary. Bet 2. Heart Fatty Acid binding protein for rapid diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction in the emergency department.

A short-cut review was carried out to establish whether the measurement of plasma heart fatty acid binding protein at the time of presentation is of any help in the accurate early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Six papers presented evidence addressing the clinical question. The author, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these papers are shown in table 1. The clinical bottom line is that although heart fatty acid binding protein is a promising biomarker it cannot be used alone to rule out the diagnosis of AMI.