Correlations between the level of brain natriuetic peptide and left ventricular function in patients with chronic heart failure

Objective To investigate the value of serum brain natriuretic peptide(BNP) in evaluating the cardiac function for patients with chronic heart failure.Methods The level of serum BNP was measured with ELISA methods in 54 patients with chronic heart failure(CHF group) and 30 healthy controls(control group).Doppler echocardiography was performed to determine left ventricular ejection fraction(LVEF),left ventricular fractional shortening(FS) and left ventricular end diastolic diameters(LVEDD).The correlations of BNP with LVEF,FS,LVEDD were analyzed.Results The level of serum BNP in the CHF group was significantly higher than that in the control group(P0.01),and significantly increased as the rise of heart function classes according to NYHA.The level of serum BNP had a significant negative correlation with LVEF,FS and positively correlated with LVEDD.Conclusions The level of serum BNP is a good marker for reflecting cardiac function,also for the diagnosing and prediction evaluating of heart failure.