New Perspectives in the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System (RAAS) IV: Circulating ACE2 as a Biomarker of Systolic Dysfunction in Human Hypertension and Heart Failure

384 individuals, comprising patients with systolic heart failure (NYHA II-IV, enrolled for cardiac resynchronization therapy, n=100), hypertensive patients (n=239), and a healthy cohort with preserved ejection fraction >50% (n=45).

Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) in the heart failure cohort; biomarker assessment across all groups.

Healthy cohort and hypertensive patients (for cross-sectional comparisons); pre-CRT vs post-CRT status (for the heart failure group).

Correlation of sACE2 activity with echocardiographic parameters (EF, EDD, ESD, dP/dt) and changes in sACE2 activity after CRT.surrogate