N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide predicts cardiovascular events in patients with hypertension and left ventricular hypertrophy: a LIFE study

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of BNP (Nesiritide), published as a randomized controlled trial.

N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (Nt-proBNP) and N-terminal pro-atrial natriuretic peptide (Nt-proANP) are strong cardiovascular risk markers in patients with chronic heart failure, as well as in the general population.

Who Took Part

The study group was 183 participants.

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

After 2 weeks of placebo treatment, clinical, laboratory and echocardiographic variables were assessed in 183 hypertensive participants in the LIFE echo substudy with electrocardiographic LV hypertrophy.

The patients were followed for 60 +/- 5 months.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and placebo-controlled study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got BNP (Nesiritide) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with BNP (Nesiritide) could be set against what happens without it.

A time span of 2 weeks appears in the methods.

Nt-proBNP and Nt-proANP were measured by immunoassay at baseline.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Anti-Infective Agents, Atenolol, Disease-Free Survival, Hypertension, Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular, Losartan and Myocardial Infarction.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of BNP (Nesiritide) in 183 participants over 2 weeks.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2004 (Journal of hypertension), a journal based in Netherlands.

More context: the BNP (Nesiritide) compound page, all human trials.