• Stephen W Waldo, Jennifer Beede, Susan Isakson, Sylvie Villard-Saussine, Jeannette Fareh, Paul Clopton, Robert L Fitzgerald, and Alan S Maisel.
• University of California at San Diego, Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, California 92161, USA.
• J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 2008 May 13;51(19):1874-82.

ObjectivesThe present study sought to evaluate the clinical utility of pro-B-type natriuretic peptides (proBNP) in patients admitted with acute decompensated heart failure.BackgroundPlasma natriuretic peptides (BNP(1-)(32), N-terminal [NT]-proBNP(1-76)) have been demonstrated to assist in the diagnosis of patients with heart failure. However, the precursor to these polypeptides (proBNP(1-108)) circulates in plasma and may interfere with the measurement of currently used biomarkers.MethodsPlasma natriuretic peptides were assessed in 164 individuals (99% men) hospitalized with decompensated heart failure. The B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), NT-proBNP, and proBNP levels at hospital admission and discharge were compared with the incidence of cardiac death and all-cause mortality within 90 days post-discharge.ResultsPro-B-type natriuretic peptides demonstrated a high degree of correlation with both BNP (R = 0.924, p < 0.001) and NT-proBNP (R = 0.802, p < 0.001) at admission. Further characterization of proBNP demonstrated little variation with changes in age, body mass index, creatinine, or systolic dysfunction. All 3 plasma natriuretic peptides were significantly elevated at admission in patients suffering a cardiac death or all-cause mortality (p < 0.05). Receiver-operating characteristic curves demonstrated that admission and discharge NT-proBNP (area under the curve [AUC] 0.788 and AUC 0.834) had superior prognostic power for all-cause mortality when compared with BNP (AUC 0.644, p < 0.01 and AUC 0.709, p < 0.01) and proBNP (AUC 0.653, p < 0.01 and AUC 0.666, p < 0.01) at the same time points.ConclusionsAdmission values of all natriuretic peptides can be used to predict cardiac death and all-cause mortality. A preliminary comparison suggests that discharge values of NT-proBNP have the greatest diagnostic yield for predicting these end points. Further studies should explore the synergistic prognostic potential of all natriuretic peptides.

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