Randomized comparison between clinical evaluation plus N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide versus exercise testing for decision making in acute chest pain of uncertain origin

What Was Tested

Researchers studied BNP (Nesiritide) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Their aim was to evaluate a new strategy, combining a clinical risk score and N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), in patients presenting to the emergency department with chest pain, without ischemic electrocardiogram changes or troponin elevation.

Why It Was Studied

Exercise testing constitutes the usual tool for decision making in chest pain units.

This policy implies logistical constrains.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 320 patients were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults, both men and women.

A total of 320 patients were randomized to either usual management, involving exercise testing, or a new strategy combining a clinical risk score and NT-proBNP without exercise testing.

In the usual management, discharge decision was guided by the result of exercise test.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

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

In the new strategy, those patients with low clinical risk score and NT-proBNP were directly discharged.

The primary outcome was hospitalization at the index episode.

Secondary outcomes were cardiac events at 1 year.

What Was Measured

Exercise testing constitutes the usual tool for decision making in chest pain units.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Acute Disease, Chest Pain, Exercise Test, Hospitalization, Natriuretic Peptide, Brain and Patient Discharge.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of BNP (Nesiritide) in 320 patients.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

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 2010 (American heart journal), a journal based in United States.

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