Isolated troponin increase after percutaneous coronary interventions: does it have prognostic relevance?

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is often “associated” with myocardial injury. This event has been considered in the past as an acceptable trade-off for an optimal stent deployment. More recently, in the Universal Definition of myocardial infarction (MI), an increase of either cardiac troponins or creatine kinase-MB >3 times the upper reference limit (URL) has been defined as MI. Although there is no doubt on the accuracy of cardiac troponins in the diagnosis of spontaneous MI, existing data do not support the hypothesis that an isolated elevation of cardiac troponins over such threshold is associated with an adverse prognosis after PCI.