Metabolic and diagnostic significance of creatine kinase isoenzymes.

Creatine kinase isoenzyme content is frequently used to assess the state of differentiation of muscle and neural tissue and following release into plasma as diagnostic markers for acute myocardial infarction, skeletal muscle disease, and neurologic injury. The establishment of thrombolytic therapy as the standard of care for acute myocardial infarction and new information on the tissue distribution of creatine kinase isoenzymes has necessitated the development of more rapid assays for the diagnosis of infarction and expanded the potential use of these isoenzymes as markers for other disease states.