Detected troponin elevation is associated with high early mortality after lung resection for cancer.

Background: Myocardial infarction can be difficult to diagnose after lung surgery. As recent diagnostic criteria emphasize serum cardiac markers (in particular serum troponin) we set out to evaluate its clinical utility and to establish the long term prognostic impact of detected abnormal postoperative troponin levels after lung resection.

Methods: We studied a historic cohort of patients with primary lung cancer who underwent intended surgical resection.