A study of the correlation between the serum brain natriuretic peptide levels and the left cardiac function in patients with heart failure

Objective To investigate the correlation between the serum brain natriuretic peptide(BNP) levels and the severity of heart failure (HF) as well as left ventricular function (LVF) in patients with heart failure.Methods 122 patients with HF before and after treatment and 20 control subjects were investigated by measuring the serum BNP levels, the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVEDD).Results The serum BNP levels in patients with HF were markedly higher than those of control subjects (P0.01), and the increase of BNP levels was closely correlated with the severity of NYHA functional class. The BNP levels were correlated negatively with the LVEF (γ=-0.34,P0.001) and positively with the LVEDD (γ=0.65,P 0.001 ).After treatment LVEF and LVEDD in patients with HF were obviously improved (P0.05), however,the serum BNP levels were significantly decreased with the improvement of cardiac function.Conclusion The increase of BNP levels is closely correlated with the severity of HF, further more,the BNP levels may reflect the LVF clearly.