Longitudinal changes in N-terminal B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) concentrations could improve risk stratification for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality in community-dwelling older adults, according to a study published online on 18 August in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Anping Cai, MD, PhD from Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, and colleagues examined the association between cardiac stress status, based on NT-proBNP changes over three years, and the risk of total CVD and all-cause mortality in community-dwelling older adults without prior CVD. Participants included 8,454 individuals without prior CVD who had NT-proBNP measurements at study entry and at year 3.
Researchers identified 818 CVD events and 1,584 deaths during a median follow-up of 8.0 years. Compared with the category of persistently absent cardiac stress, adjusted absolute risks for total CVD at year 8 increased by 7.4 per cent and 6.7 per cent for incident and sustained cardiac stress, respectively. For all-cause mortality, adjusted absolute risks also increased by 6.1 per cent and 7.5 per cent for incident and sustained cardiac stress, respectively. Similar adjusted absolute risks were observed for the cardiac stress remission category compared with the persistently absent cardiac stress group.
"Future studies should determine whether cardiac stress status based on serial NT-proBNP values can inform care to reduce the risk of CVD and mortality in a population of older adults," the authors write.
