Abstract
What causes BNP elevation in patients without congestive heart failure? A number of factors other than ventricular function, including advanced patient age, female gender, decreased body mass index, decreased renal function, left ventricular hypertrophy, history of myocardial infarction and ongoing cardiac ischemia, pulmonary embolism, chronic right ventricular failure and cardiac arrhythmias have been shown to influence circulating BNP levels. Five independent predictors of elevated BNP levels (> 100 pg/ml) in the absence of acute heart failure were also identified: low hemoglobin values, low body mass index, a medical history of atrial fibrillation, radiographic cardiomegaly and advanced age of the patient [5]. However in that study, renal function did not emerge as an independent predictor of BNP, possibly because of collinearity with patient age.
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