N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide. A new gold standard in predicting mortality in patients with advanced heart failure.

Abstract

The selection of patients for cardiac transplantation (CTx) is notoriously difficult and traditionally involves clinical assessment and an assimilation of markers of the severity of CHF such as the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), maximum oxygen uptake (peak VO2) and more recently, composite scoring systems e.g. the heart failure survival score (HFSS). Brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) is well established as an independent predictor of prognosis in mild to moderate chronic heart failure (CHF). However, the prognostic ability of NT-proBNP in advanced heart failure is unknown and no studies have compared NT-proBNP to standard clinical markers used in the selection of patients for transplantation. The purpose of this study was to examine the prognostic ability of NT-proBNP in advanced heart failure and compare it to that of the LVEF, peak VO2 and the HFSS.