Efficacy and Safety of Outpatient Treatment Based on the Hestia Clinical Decision Rule with or without N-Terminal Pro-Brain Natriuretic Peptide Testing in Patients with Acute Pulmonary Embolism. A Randomized Clinical Trial

What Was Tested

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

However, trials to assess its safety and the optimal method for patient selection are scarce.

To validate the utility and safety of selecting patients with PE for outpatient treatment by the Hestia criteria and to compare the safety of the Hestia criteria alone with the Hestia criteria combined with N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) testing.

Who Took Part

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

The researchers randomized patients with PE without any of the Hestia criteria to direct discharge or additional NT-proBNP testing.

The researchers discharged the latter patients as well if NT-proBNP did not exceed 500 ng/L or admitted them if NT-proBNP was greater than 500 ng/L.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized 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.

The primary endpoint was 30-day adverse outcome defined as PE- or bleeding-related mortality, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or intensive care unit admission.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Computed Tomography Angiography, Decision Support Techniques, Intensive Care Units, Natriuretic Peptide, Brain, Patient Discharge and Peptide Fragments.

The authors tagged it with the keywords outpatient treatment, pulmonary embolism and risk stratification.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 7 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2016 (American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine), a journal based in England.

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