Emergency department observation of patients with acute heart failure prior to hospital admission: impact on short-term prognosis.

Objectives: To analyze whether short-term outcomes are affected when patients diagnosed with acute heart failure (AHF) spend time in an emergency department observation unit (EDOU) before hospital admission.

Material And Methods: Baseline and emergency episode data were collected for patients diagnosed with AHF in the EDs of 15 Spanish hospitals. We analyzed crude and adjusted associations between EDOU stay and 30-day mortality (primary outcome) and in-hospital mortality and a prolonged hospital stay of more than 7 days (secondary outcomes).

Utility of myeloperoxidase in the differential diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome.

Objectives: To determine the usefulness of myeloperoxidase in discriminating between patients with acute coronary syndrome and patients with chest pain by other causes.

Methods: The study included all patients over 18 years of age who come consecutively to the emergency department from September 2015 to December 2015 with chest pain of non-traumatic origin. The initial patient evaluation was performed according to the study protocol for patients with suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in our Emergency Department.

[Utility of NT-proBNP for diagnosing heart failure in a heterogeneous population of patients with dyspnea. Spanish multicenter study].

Introduction And Objectives: Recent studies have shown that brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-terminal proBNP (NT-proBNP) are useful in the diagnosis of heart failure in patients presenting with dyspnea. However, the cutoff values used with these markers vary according to patient characteristics and dyspnea severity. The aim of this study was to investigate the diagnostic accuracy of using the plasma NT-proBNP level for identifying heart failure in a heterogeneous population of patients with dyspnea.