Dr Michelle Dickinson: nanotechnologist on the new blood test designed to detect serious heart conditions

A 'broken heart' can look just like a heart attack, and now a new blood test may tell the difference.

A broken heart isn't just an expression. Extreme emotional or physical stress can sometimes cause a genuine heart condition that looks remarkably like a heart attack.

It's called Takotsubo syndrome, or 'broken heart syndrome', and it overwhelmingly affects women after menopause.

Someone experiencing it may suddenly develop severe chest pain, an abnormal ECG and blood tests showing signs of heart injury. Even the heart's pumping ability can be affected.

The problem is that these are also classic signs of a heart attack.

The important difference is what's happening inside the heart. A typical heart attack involves a problem with blood flow through a coronary artery. With broken heart syndrome, part of the heart muscle temporarily stops contracting normally.

Why knowing the difference matters:

Doctors can't simply look at a woman with chest pain and decide that stress caused it, and missing a genuine heart attack could be deadly.

So currently, many patients with suspected Takotsubo undergo coronary angiography, an invasive procedure in which a catheter is passed through an artery, usually from the wrist or groin, and dye is used to look for blockages in the coronary arteries.

It's often only after doctors find no culprit blockage that Takotsubo becomes clear.

That matters particularly for older women as 86-91 percent of the Takotsubo patients were women over 50.

The researchers behind this new study identified the lack of a reliable early non-invasive tests and published their study in the European Heart Journal.