New case study: early blood based detection of heart disease in Atlantic salmon

February 19, 2026

Viral heart diseases are a challenge for salmon farming in Scotland and Norway. Three conditions - pancreas disease (PD), cardiomyopathy syndrome (CMS) and heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI) - can occur together and damage the heart and muscles. Currently, diagnosis often relies on tests that require lethal sampling.

An earlier SAIC-funded project identified two blood markers, cTnC and skTnC, that indicate different types of muscle damage. This project tested whether these markers could offer a practical, early, and non lethal way to identify which disease is affecting salmon.

Valued at almost £408k, the partners on this project were the University of Glasgow, Cooke Aquaculture Scotland, Life Diagnostics Ltd, Benchmark Ltd, Moredun Research Institute, and the University of Edinburgh.

A study across Scottish farms tracked natural disease outbreaks. Researchers found that both markers rose during PD, while CMS caused a smaller increase in only one of them. This shows potential for distinguishing between diseases, although CMS can be harder to detect in fish recovering from PD. Additional testing, including virus detection and heart tissue examination, provided further insight into how these conditions develop on farms.

A controlled study in Norway supported these findings, confirming that one of the markers rises as CMS develops and can indicate early heart damage.

The project explored additional biomarkers with fibrinogen - a blood protein – emerging as a promising supplementary marker to improve the ability to tell PD and CMS apart. Researchers also developed a new lab method which may help clarify diagnoses in challenging cases.

Overall, the work demonstrates that these blood markers could allow farms to diagnose heart related diseases earlier, more accurately, and without the need for lethal sampling.

The full title of this project is ‘Use of serum biomarkers for early differential diagnostics of cardiomyopathies of Atlantic salmon: field and challenge assessment'. It is a follow to this project: Assessing the use of cardiac biomarkers as a health management tool for early diagnosis of cardiomyopathy syndrome (CMS) in Atlantic salmon.

Read the case study