The effect of carvedilol on B-type natriuretic peptide and cardiac function in patients with heart failure and persistent atrial fibrillation

What Was Tested

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

The researchers sought to determine the relationship between changes in natriuretic peptides and symptoms as a consequence of introducing beta-blocker therapy, in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) and persistent atrial fibrillation (AF).

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 47 patients were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as 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.

Because people in this BNP (Nesiritide) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Neither the patients nor the staff measuring them knew who was on BNP (Nesiritide), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

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

Symptoms score, 6-min walk distance, New York Heart Association (NYHA) class, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), heart rate (24-hour ECG) and BNP were measured at baseline and at 4 months.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Adrenergic beta-Antagonists, Atrial Fibrillation, Biomarkers, Carbazoles, Carvedilol, Case-Control Studies and Digoxin.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of BNP (Nesiritide) in 47 patients.

Its findings take up roughly 4 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2015 (Cardiology), a journal based in Switzerland.

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