The detection of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction in hypertensive patients: Performance ofN-terminal probrain natriuretic peptide

AIM: Diastolic dysfunction (DD) results in increased cardiovascular risk in hypertensives. We studied the performance of N-terminal probrain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) in detecting DD. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 241 hypertensive patients admitted to cardiology polyclinics were included in this study. They were grouped according to the presence of DD. Group 1: Essential hypertensive patients without DD (n= 119); group 2: essential hypertensive patients with DD (n= 122). All underwent trans-thoracic echocardiography for the evaluation of transvalvular flow, morphology, left ventricular wall motion abnormalities and ejection fraction. NT-proBNP levels were measured by an electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. RESULTS: The systolic blood pressure (BP) (mean+/-SD) was 140+/-12 mmHg in group 1 and 144+/-16 mmHg in group 2 (p=0.049), the diastolic BP (mean+/-SD) was 88+/-10 mmHg in group 1 and 90+/-14 mmHg in group 2 (p=0.043). The median (1st-3rd quartile) NT-proBNP level in group 2 was significantly higher than group 1 [121.05 (61.03-207.66) and 31.17 (17.07-54.09) pg/ml, respectively (p<0.001)]. In the receiver operating characteristics analysis, the area under the curve was 0.862 (95% CI 0.816-0.908). At the cut-off of 45 pg/ml, sensitivity was 86.9%, specificity was 62.4%, and at the cut-off 65 pg/ml, sensitivity was 74.6%, specificity was 83.8%. CONCLUSION: Plasma NT-proBNP levels may be useful for identifying patients with DD and it is conceivable to use a cut-off level 65 pg/ml as a "rule in" test.