Conventional risk factors, such as high cholesterol levels and high blood pressure, fail to account for all cases of cardiovascular disease (CVD). For example, more than 75 % of heart attacks occur in patients with normal cholesterol.
Therefore, there is a clinical need to expand the number of diagnostic tools available for evaluating an individual’s risk of CVD. Numerous extensive studies have demonstrated that the concentration of homocysteine can serve as an excellent, clinically useful risk factor for CVD.
Clinical benefit
Measurement of homocysteine for cardiac risk patients under therapy has become an important diagnostic tool. Modest reduction of homocysteine levels is predicted to reduce the risk up to 25% for cardiovascular disease.
Roche Homocysteine is more specific than other methods because it does not interfere with cystathionine. Cystathionine levels are significantly elevated in millions of renal failure patients. Methods which are affected by this interference can overestimate homocysteine by as much as 20 – 300 %.
Benefits for the lab
The enzyme cycling test method is faster than High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and immunoassays and does not require sample pre-treatment and special instrumentation.