[High sensitivity cardiac troponin assays 2009: clinical potential, current practice and benefits, the future].

At present, determination of cardiac troponins (cTn) is the biomarker method of choice for diagnostics and risk stratification in patients with a myocardial injury. Past clinical practice had provided sound evidence that low cTn concentrations, measured with unacceptable imprecision by the currently used methods, hold important clinical, diagnostic and stratification potential. The new generation cTn assays, so called high-sensitivity assays, enable determination of very low cTn concentrations with satisfactory analytical precision and open the way to early identification of small but often prognostically important myocardial damage.

[Light chain deposition disease as a cause of renal failure].

The objective of the paper is to draw attention to a rare cause of rapidly progressing renal failure which developed in the course of four months as a result of light chain deposition disease. The authors submit two case-histories of the disease assessed by renal biopsy after previous clinical and laboratory suspicion of monoclonal gammapathy. In one patient in the sternal punctate plasmacytoma was diagnosed and in the second case it was not possible to detect any type of monoclonal gammapathy or another possible cause of disease.

[Renal hemodynamics and albuminuria in patients with arterial hypertension].

Background: The cause of hyperalbuminuria in hypertonic patients can be functional or irreversible structural changes. The objective of the present investigation was an attempt to differentiate these two possibilities by comparing data of hypertonic patients with normal albuminuria (albumin excretion < 20 micrograms/min) and those with microalbuminuria in patients with renovascular hypertension by comparing findings after successful percutaneous transluminal angioplasty of the renal arteries (n = 8).

Methods And Results: The authors examined 20 patients with normal albuminuria (12 men and 8 women, mean age 46 years) and 20 patients with microalbuminuria (12 men and 8 women, mean age 49 years).

[Albuminuria after acute oral administration of proteins in patients with renovascular hypertension].

In a group of 19 patients with renovascular hypertension the effect of a morning snack comprising meat (1 g protein per 1 kg body weight) on urinary albumin excretion was assessed. Concurrently the plasma creatinine concentration (Pcr) was examined which varied between normal and 260 mumol/l and the creatinine clearance (Ccr). After administration of an acute protein load the mean Ccr value increased by 23%.