It is a must for nurses to know about cardiac enzymes. There are a lot of MI cases. Having this knowledge will help the patient and prevent further complication of the case. With MI there are certain cardiac enzymes that will rise and it will indicate the diagnosis of the problem.
Increased CK-MB – indicates cardiac damage after 4-8 hours post infarcts.
Increased CK-MM – indicates muscular damage.
LDH – increase 3-6 days post MI
SGOT – increase 24-48 hours post MI
Troponin – is one enzymes that arises almost immediately. It is the most specific enzymes. If patient has chest pain 30minutes ago and went to the ER, we can see Troponin rises and it continue to rise. It gives us a good indication that probably a cardiac related incident.