How can you find out whether a person had a heart attack earlier?

How can you find out whether a person had a heart attack earlier?

ECG can detect an old heart attack even years later. Old myocardial infarctions (technical term for old heart attack) will manifest as pathological Q waves in the ECG. Cardiac troponin test detects a recent myocardial infarction for about 2 weeks. CPK (Creatine Phosphokinase) can detect it for a few days.

The CPK value peaks at about 24 hours after a myocardial infarction. Echocardiogram, the ultrasound study of heart, can also detect an old myocardial infarction for a long period. Nuclear imaging and MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) can also detect previous myocardial infarction. But if these tests are negative, it does not always exclude a previous heart attack, as the evidence may not persist long in mild attacks.