Masanori Nomura

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the plasma brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) concentration is a useful marker of right ventricular (RV) overload and whether it has prognostic value as a predictor or death in patients with chronic respiratory disease (CRD). We measured the plasma BNP and atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) concentrations in 31 consecutive patients with CRD who underwent right-heart catheterization to evaluate pulmonary hypertension. All patients were followed for > 12 months. The plasma BNP concentration closely correlated with the mean pulmonary artery pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance (r=0.62, P<0.0005 and r=0.85, P<0.0001), and showed a weak linear correlation with cardiac output (r= -0.36, P<0.05). During the follow-up period, 5 (16%) end-stage CRD deaths (4 RV heart failure and 1 respiratory infection) and 2 non-end-stage CRD deaths occurred. In a stepwise multivariate Cox proportional-hazards regression analysis including age, sex, BNP, ANP, hemodynamic variables and the ratio of PaO2 to fraction of inspired oxygen, only BNP (P<0.05) was an independent predictor of end-stage CRD death. The upward and leftward shift in the receiver operating characteristic curve between patients with end-stage CRD death and those without was greater for BNP than for ANP. Our findings suggest that the plasma BNP concentration may be an inexpensive, simple and useful marker of RV overload and end-stage CRD death in CRD patients. These preliminary results need to be confirmed in a large series of CRD patients. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

We compared the diagnostic utility of serum concentrations of human heart-type cytoplasmic fatty acid-binding protein (H-FABPc), myoglobin, and their ratio for the early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in 104 healthy volunteers and 165 patients at admission within 6 h of the onset of chest pain. The ROC curves of the H-FABPc [0.946, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.913-0.979] and myoglobin (0.895, 95% CI = 0.846-0.944) between patients with AMI and healthy volunteers were significantly greater than the area under the ratio of myoglobin to H-FABPc (0.823, 95% CI = 0.765-0.881), In 165 patients, the sensitivity (81.8%, 95% CI = 74.2-89.4%), specificity (86.4%, 95% CP = 78.1-94.6%), and predictive accuracy (83.6%, 95% CI = 78.0-89.3%) of H-FABPc >12 mu g/L in diagnosing AMI were significantly high er than those of myoglobin, and were similar to those of the combination of H-FABPc >12 mu g/L and the ratio less than or equal to 14, We conclude that H-FABPc is a more sensitive and specific marker than myoglobin for the early diagnosis of AMI, and that their ratio cannot give a clear advantage over the measurement of H-FABPc alone.

The in vivo features of the wall and lumen of mild coronary dilatation associated with atherosclerosis and the relationship with coronary ectasia were investigated by intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging of 11 patients with angiographically-proven mild coronary dilatation. Maximal luminal diameter, thickness of the inner echogenic layer and echolucent zone, and frequency of calcification of the dilatation sites were compared with those of proximal adjacent normal sites. The results showed that: luminal diameter by angiography was significantly larger at the dilatation site and the ratio of dilatation/normal diameter was 1.27±0.07 the maximal luminal diameter of the dilatation site by IVUS was greater than that of the normal site (4.56±0.87 vs 3.94±0.61 mm, p&lt 0.01) the thickness of the inner echogenic layer and echolucent zone increased significantly at the dilatation site over the normal site (0.48±0.12 vs 0.17± 0.14 mm and 0.53±0.17 vs 0.10±0.10 mm, p&lt 0.001, respectively) calcification occurred more frequently at the dilatation site (54.5% vs 9.1%, p&lt 0.05). The thickened inner echogenic layer and echolucent zone and a high frequency of calcification were observed by in vivo IVUS in the wall of angiographically-defined mild coronary dilatation lesions caused by atherosclerosis.