OBJECTIVE To investigate the usefulness of measuring plasma concentrations of B type natriuretic peptide in the diagnosis of left ventricular systolic dysfunction in an unselected group of elderly people. DESIGN Observational study. SETTING General practice with four centres in Poole, Dorset. PARTICIPANTS 155 elderly patients aged 70 to 84 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Diagnostic charact...

STUDY OBJECTIVE We determine the diagnostic accuracy of goal-directed echocardiography, cardiac biomarkers, and computed tomography (CT) in early identification of severe right ventricular dysfunction in normotensive emergency department patients with pulmonary embolism compared with comprehensive echocardiography. METHODS This was a prospective observational study of consecutive normotensive...

OBJECTIVES The goal of this study was to determine if brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) levels are associated with exercise capacity in patients with chronic heart failure (HF). BACKGROUND Plasma levels of BNP are increased subject to the degree of systolic and diastolic left ventricular dysfunction in patients with chronic HF. Exercise testing is useful to assess functional capacity and progno...

Rademaker, Miriam T., Vicky A. Cameron, Christopher J. Charles, Eric A. Espiner, M. Gary Nicholls, Christopher J. Pemberton, and A. Mark Richards. Neurohormones in an ovine model of compensated postinfarction left ventricular dysfunction. Am. J. Physiol. Heart Circ. Physiol. 278: H731–H740, 2000.—Clinical heart failure, often the result of myocardial infarction, may be preceded by a period of c...

Global left ventricular (LV) systolic dysfunction is the strongest predictor of morbidity and mortality in Chagas disease. Echocardiography is considered the gold standard for the detection of LV dysfunction, but not always available in endemic areas where chagasic cardiomyopathy is most common. Brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) is a neurohormone that has been recently described as a simple and i...

OBJECTIVE The association between biochemical markers and left ventricular ejection fraction in patients with myocardial infarction was not completely studied. Our goal is to study the association between biochemical markers and left ventricular dysfunction in patients with ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction. METHODS With an observational and prospective design we included patients with...

Doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity was used as a model to prospectively investigate neuroendocrine changes during the development of left ventricular dysfunction. Radionuclide ventriculography, frequency domain analysis of heart rate variability (HRV), and plasma noradrenaline and natriuretic peptide measurements were performed in 27 adult lymphoma patients at baseline and after cumulative doxo...

BACKGROUND Aldosterone stimulates cardiac collagen synthesis. Circulating biomarkers of collagen turnover provide a useful tool for the assessment of cardiac remodeling in patients with congestive heart failure and left ventricular systolic dysfunction after acute myocardial infarction. METHODS AND RESULTS In a substudy of the Eplerenone Post-Acute Myocardial Infarction Heart Failure Efficacy...