They form 14-15 kDa proteins and are thought to participate in the uptake, intracellular metabolism and/or transport of long-chain fatty acids.

[15][16] H-FABP is recommended to be measured with troponin to identify myocardial infarction and acute coronary syndrome in patients presenting with chest pain.

[17] This sensitivity may be explained by the high concentration of H-FABP in myocardium compared to other tissues, the stability and solubility of H-FABP, its low molecular weight; 15kDa compared to 18, 80 and 37kDa for MYO, CK-MB and cTnT respectively,[18][19][20] its rapid release into plasma after myocardial injury – 60 minutes after an ischemic episode,[21] and its relative tissue specificity.

[22] Similarly this study showed that measuring H-FABP in combination with troponin increased the diagnostic accuracy and with a negative predictive value of 98% could be used to identify those not suffering from MI at the early time point of 3–6 hours post chest pain onset.

Alongside D-dimer, NT-proBNP and peak troponin T, it was the only cardiac biomarker that proved to be a statistically significant predictor of death or MI at one year.

Commercial tests include a Cardiac Array on Evidence MultiStat; and an automated biochemistry assay [citation needed]