B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) is a member of the natriuretic peptide family, a group of widely distributed, but evolutionarily conserved, polypeptide mediators that exert myriad cardiovascular effects. BNP is a potent vasodilator with mitogenic, hypertrophic and pro-inflammatory properties that is upregulated in pulmonary hypertensive diseases. Circulating levels of BNP correlate with mean p...

AIMS Clinical studies failed to prove convincingly efficiency of intravenous infusion of neseritide during heart failure and evidence suggested a pro-adrenergic action of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP). However, subcutaneous BNP therapy was recently proposed in heart failure, thus raising new perspectives over what was considered as a promising treatment. We tested the efficiency of a combina...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Determination of peptide biomarkers such as troponins, natriuretic peptides or the recently reported FGF23 can be useful to identify hemodialysis patients with a high risk of mortality. However, it is desirable to focus on few robust parameters to warrant their routine application. METHODS In a prospective cohort study with 239 prevalent hemodialysis patients we studied the pr...

RATIONALE Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare progressive disease of the pulmonary vasculature that is characterized by endothelial dysfunction, inflammation, and right ventricular dysfunction. OBJECTIVES The main objective was to determine whether endothelial, inflammatory, and cardiac biomarkers would be associated with the World Health Organization functional assessment and sur...

BACKGROUND Objective methods to assess the adequacy of medication therapy for patients with advanced heart failure are lacking. Serial measurements of biomarkers might be beneficial. Therapy guided by N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) might be helpful because NT-proBNP should be lowered by therapies that decrease endogenous BNP secretion. METHODS NT-proBNP and BNP were mea...

AIMS The aim of this study was to determine whether growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) predicts mortality and morbidity after cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). Growth differentiation factor-15, a transforming growth factor-beta-related cytokine which is up-regulated in cardiomyocytes via multiple stress pathways, predicts mortality in patients with heart failure treated pharmacolo...

OBJECTIVE To see the role of Vitamin D supplementation on physical status of patients suffering from Congestive Heart Failure (dilated cardiomyopathy). METHODS In this nonrandomized clinical trial, Forty three Patients with dilated cardiomyopathy who were not showing any significant improvements in physical performance on optimal treatment of heart failure were included. Vitamin D (200,000 IU...

The risk of developing heart failure (HF) with a reduced and preserved ejection fraction is known to increase pre-diabetes diabetic mellitus (DM). Natriuretic peptides (NPs) have been shown be an important tool for assessing the cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in people Type 2 diabetes (T2DM), regardless HF characteristics. Elevated levels NPs were associated increased readmission HF, all-cause m...

Background. Brain natriuretic peptide and its inactive fragment N-terminal pro-BNP (N-BNP) are reliable markers of ventricular dysfunction in adults and children. We analyzed the impact of nutritional state on N-BNP levels in infants with failure to thrive (FTT) and in infants with severe heart failure (HF). The purpose of this study was to compare N-BNP levels in infants with FTT with infants ...