Emergency department clinical performance of ADVIA Centaur n-terminal prohormone of B-type natriuretic peptide assay.

Background: Natriuretic peptide testing is guideline recommended as an aid to the diagnosis of heart failure (HF). We sought to evaluate the performance of the ADVIA Centaur (Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Tarrytown, NY) NT-proBNPII assay (PBNPII) in emergency department (ED) dyspneic patients.

Methods: Eligible patients presented to the ED with dyspnea, with their gold standard diagnosis determined by up to 3 cardiologists blinded to the PBNPII results.