Utility of B-Type Natriuretic Peptide (BNP) as a Screen for Left Ventricular Dysfunction in Patients With Diabetes

OBJECTIVE: Routine screening of diabetic patients with echocardiography is not feasible due to its limited availability and high cost. B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) is secreted from the left ventricle in response to pressure overload and is elevated in both systolic and diastolic dysfunction. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: BNP levels were compared to echocardiographic findings in 263 patients. Patients were divided into two groups: clinical indication for echocardiography (CIE) (n = 172) and those without clinical indication for echocardiography (no-CIE) (n = 91). Cardiologists making the assessment of left ventricular function were blinded when measuring plasma levels of BNP. RESULTS: The 91 patients with no-CIE with echoes had similar BNP levels (83 +/- 16 pg/ml) to the 215 patients with no-CIE without echoes (63 +/- 10, P = 0.10). Patients with CIE and subsequent abnormal left ventricular function (n = 112) had a mean BNP concentration of 435 +/- 41 pg/ml, compared with those with no-CIE, but had abnormal left ventricular function on echo (n = 32) (161 +/- 40 pg/ml). Twenty-one of 32 patients with no-CIE but with abnormal left ventricular function had diastolic dysfunction (BNP 190 +/- 60 pg/ml). A receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve revealed that the area under the curve was 0.91 for CIE patients and 0.81 for no-CIE patients (P < 0.001). For those with no congestive heart failure (CHF) symptoms, BNP levels showed a high negative predictive value (91% for BNP values <39 pg/ml), while in those patients who had a CIE, BNP levels showed a high positive predictive value for the detection of left ventricular dysfunction (96% with BNP levels >90 pg/ml). CONCLUSIONS: BNP can reliably screen diabetic patients for the presence or absence of left ventricular dysfunction.