Correspondence to: Professor Paulo M Bettencourt, Unidade Cuidados Intermédios Medicina, Hospital S Joaõ, Alameda Hernani Monteiro, 4200 Porto, Portugal; pbettfer@ esoterica.pt _________________________ T he identification of natriuretic peptides led to an explosion of basic and clinical investigations to clarify their physiology, pathophysiologic role in heart failure, and clinical usefulness....

To the Editor With great interest we read the article by Srisawasdi et al. 1 They found that the ratio between N-terminal (NT)-pro-B-natriuretic peptide (BNP) and BNP increases exponentially with the stage of renal disease. van Kimmenade et al, 2 however, suggested the NT-proBNP/BNP ratio increases only slightly and shows a linear trend. Their findings are used to support the hypothesis that BN...

OBJECTIVE The associations of some risk factors with cardiovascular disease (CVD) are attenuated in older age; whereas others appear robust. The present study aimed to compare CVD risk factors across older age. METHODS Participants (n = 4883) in the Cardiovascular Health Study free of prevalent CVD, were stratified into three age groups: 65-74, 75-84, 85+ years. Traditional risk factors inclu...

Background This study aimed to compare the effects of combined endurance-resistance training (CT) versus endurance training (ET) on some cardiovascular markers in patients with heart failure after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Materials and Methods The study applied a randomized, controlled design in which 75 patients with heart failure who had undergone PCI were randomly assigned...

BACKGROUND Phase analysis, developed to assess dyssynchrony from ECG-gated radionuclide ventriculography, has shown promising results. We hypothesized that quantifying the cardiac resynchronization reserve, that is, the extent of response to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), by radionuclide imaging could potentially identify patients who are best suited for CRT. METHODS AND RESULTS Sev...

Recent studies report that, in the absence of heart failure and renal failure, plasma B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) has prognostic value for mortality. We sought to confirm and extend these previous studies to assess BNP, measured by 3 distinct assays, as a biomarker for mortality in a strategy to enhance efforts at primary prevention and to better understand the clinical phenotype of such s...

BACKGROUND In adults with sickle cell disease (SCD), an increased tricuspid regurgitant velocity (TRV) measured by Doppler echocardiography, an increased serum N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-pro-BNP) level, and pulmonary hypertension (PH) diagnosed by right heart catheterization (RHC) are independent risk factors for mortality. METHODS A multidisciplinary committee was formed by...