• S Suttner, J Boldt, K Lang, K D Röhm, S N Piper, and J Mayer.
• Klinikum der Stadt Ludwigshafen, Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Ludwigshafen, Germany. suttner@gmx.de
• Eur J Anaesthesiol. 2008 Oct 1;25(10):834-41.

Background And ObjectivesDespite evidence of their prognostic power for non-surgical patients, the value of perioperative natriuretic peptides and cardiac troponins as markers of cardiac events is incompletely defined. This study sought to examine whether perioperative N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) and cardiac troponin T (cTnT) levels could be used for the prediction of in-hospital cardiac events in elderly patients undergoing elective coronary artery bypass grafting.MethodsNinety-eight elderly patients (>75 yr) undergoing elective coronary artery bypass grafting with cardiopulmonary bypass were enrolled and followed up for 121 and 0.66 1 for NT-proBNP and cTnT (sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of 84.3%, 89.4%, 78.9% and 92.4%, and 93.7%, 74.2%, 63.8% and 96.1%, respectively) at 24 h after surgery to be associated with in-hospital cardiac events. An elevation of both biomarkers above these threshold values was independently associated with individual postoperative complications (odds ratio, 18.9; 95%, CI, 2.3-106.1).ConclusionsIn elderly patients undergoing elective coronary artery bypass grafting surgery, high values of NT-proBNP and cTnT measured 24 h after the end of surgery were independently associated with in-hospital cardiac events.

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