B-type natriuretic peptide is not a volume marker among patients on hemodialysis

What Was Tested

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

The purpose of this study was to examine among people with hypertension on hemodialysis whether BNP is a biomarker of excess volume.

Why It Was Studied

Although the cardiac biomarker B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) is strongly related to mortality in end-stage renal disease (ESRD), whether it is a predictor of weight change or blood pressure (BP) response upon probing dry weight among hypertensive hemodialysis patients remains unknown.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were teenagers, young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Hypertensive hemodialysis patients (n = 150) were randomized to a control group (n = 50) or an ultrafiltration group (n = 100) and followed up for 30 dialysis treatments.

After a baseline run-in of six treatments, those assigned to the ultrafiltration group had dry weight probed over 8 weeks.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized.

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

The timeline in the abstract includes 8 weeks.

Forty-four-hour interdialytic ambulatory BP and predialysis BNP were measured at the end of run-in period, at 4 weeks and at 8 weeks.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Biomarkers, Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory, Blood Volume, Case-Control Studies, Cohort Studies, Hypertension and Natriuretic Peptide, Brain.

The authors tagged it with the keywords BNP, ESRD, dry weight and hemodialysis.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of BNP (Nesiritide) over 8 weeks.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 8 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2013 (Nephrology, dialysis, transplantation : official publication of the European Dialysis and Transplant Association - European Renal Association), a journal based in England.

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