Abstract
BACKGROUND: Beside their role in the diagnosis of heart failure in symptomatic patients with dyspnea, natriuretic peptides have been suggested to improve risk prediction of cardiac events and mortality in asymptomatic cohorts. We aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of NT-proBNP for cardiovascular and all-cause mortality above traditional risk factors in a prospective cohort study of unselected elderly patients in a representative primary care setting. METHODS: We followed 6382 patients of the getABI-study for 7 years. Associations of NT-proBNP levels (≤125; 125-300; >300pg/ml for all) with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality were assessed using cox regression analysis. RESULTS: The incidence of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality was higher in subjects with higher levels of NT-proBNP (all-cause mortality/cardiovascular mortality: 35.4%/6% for NT-proBNP > 300 pg/ml; 16.2%/40% for NT-proBNP 125-300 pg/ml vs. 11.4%/4% for NT-proBNP ≤ 125 pg/ml. Participants with a NT-proBNP levels > 300pg/ml had increased incidence of hard endpoint (hazard ratio (HR) (95% confidence interval (CI)): 3.62 (3.15-4.17) for all-cause mortality, and 6.38 (4.84-8.41) for cardiovascular mortality). These associations remained after adjustment for traditional risk factors and cardiac medications and diseases (HR = 2.64 (2.26-3.08) for all-cause mortality, and HR = 3.93 (2.90-5.32) for cardiovascular mortality). CONCLUSION: Our results show strong associations of higher NT-proBNP levels with cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in an unselected, large population of elderly patients in the primary care setting independent of traditional risk factors indicating that NT-proBNP can help identifying subjects at high risk for cardiac events.