Abbott announced the worldwide launch of AxSYM Troponin-I ADV, which provides initial results within 15 minutes and offers improved detection of cardiac troponin-a protein that is released from dying heart muscle cells deprived of blood flow during a heart attack.

By offering diagnostics tests that assist in determining a patient's overall cardiac health, Abbott's AxSYM automated immunoassay instrument system provides one of the most comprehensive cardiac menus for the acute care hospital laboratory. Abbott plans to introduce and distribute the AxSYM Troponin-I ADV assay worldwide, replacing the current AxSYM Troponin test, according to a company release.

"Abbott really took a systematic approach to the design of AxSYM Troponin-I ADV," said Alan Wu, chief of clinical chemistry, San Francisco General Hospital and Professor of Laboratory Medicine, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California. "The AxSYM Troponin-I ADV assay offers enhanced performance and greater stability. This assay is standardized to the new National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Standard Reference Material developed in cooperation with an American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) subcommittee. The test, when used in combination with other diagnostic modalities, provides physicians with the information they need to make critical and timely treatment decisions," he added.

"Part of an acute cardiac diagnostic menu, doctors consider troponin assays to be one of the most important tests to use when diagnosing heart attacks," William Brown, vice president, Diagnostic Assays and Systems Development, Abbott noted. "When developing the AxSYM Troponin-I ADV test, it was important to provide not only an accurate and sensitive test but also one that offered standardized results to better meet today's evolving standards of care. Abbott is one of the first manufacturers to offer this standardization with both Architect and AxSYM troponin assays," he claimed.

In early September, Abbott received 510(k) clearance for the AxSYM Troponin-I ADV test from the US FDA.

The AxSYM immunoassay system can process up to 80 to 120 tests per hour allowing high to medium-volume clinical laboratories to process a variety of immunodiagnostic tests simultaneously. Other tests on AxSYM's cardiac menu include: AxSYM BNP, AxSYM CK-MB and AxSYM Myoglobin. A metabolic assay, AxSYM Homocysteine, is often ordered in conjunction with other tests to assess cardiovascular risk, the release added.