Prophylactic nesiritide does not prevent dialysis or all-cause mortality in patients undergoing high-risk cardiac surgery

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at BNP (Nesiritide).

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 21 patients taking part.

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

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

The patients were allocated by chance, so the BNP (Nesiritide) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

As a double-blind BNP (Nesiritide) study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

Some patients received a placebo instead of BNP (Nesiritide), giving a reference point.

The timeline in the abstract includes 21 days.

The primary end point was dialysis and/or all-cause mortality within 21 days; secondary end points were incidence of acute kidney injury, renal function, and length of stay.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Acute Kidney Injury, Aortic Aneurysm, Cardiac Surgical Procedures, Cause of Death, Creatinine, Glomerular Filtration Rate and Heart Valve Prosthesis Implantation.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of BNP (Nesiritide) in 21 patients over 21 days.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2009 (The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery), a journal based in United States.

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