EDITORIALS
Natriuretic peptides or psychometric tests? Prognostic markers in congestive heart failure
1 Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University of Göttingen, Germany
2 Department of Cardiology, University Hospital of Graz, Austria
Correspondence to:
Professor Christoph Herrmann-Lingen, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University of Göttingen, von-Siebold-Str. 5, Göttingen, D-37099, Germany; cherrma@gwdg.de
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a highly prevalent condition and its impact will increase further in the future. Due to its poor prognosis, heart failure has been named a "malignant disease". Several prognostic factors have been identified in CHF patients. Comprehensive prognostic scores have been based on clinical and laboratory parameters such as age, gender, comorbidity, ejection fraction, exercise capacity or haemoglobin concentrations.1 These scores have, however, often ignored the prognostic potential of neuroendocrine markers in CHF. B-type natriuretic peptides seem to be the most powerful neuroendocrine markers and their routine application has found increasing support. Longitudinal studies have demonstrated independent statistical effects of BNP and NT-pro-BNP on mortality rates. In a systematic review, Doust et al2 found that in 23 of 35 multivariable analyses CHF outcomes were predicted by B-type natriuretic peptides at higher significance levels than by any other risk marker. In nine of these analyses, BNP or
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Heart 2008 94: 585-589.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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