Natriuretic peptides as markers of mild forms of left ventricular dysfunction: effects of assays on diagnostic performance of markers.

Background: We compared the performance of different natriuretic peptides to diagnose mild forms of left ventricular dysfunction (LVD) and investigated the influence of measuring B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-terminal proBNP (NT-proBNP) with different assays on the diagnostic performance of these markers.

Methods: We measured BNP (Triage BNP), NT-proBNP (Biomedica), and N-terminal pro-A-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proANP; Biomedica) in 130 consecutive patients (age range, 28-83 years) with clinically suspected mild LVD. In patients with sufficient sample volume, we measured BNP and NT-proBNP with additional assays (Shionoria and Roche, respectively).