Simple Blood Test Predicts Death Risk

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Could a simple blood test given to people who come to the emergency room complaining of shortness of breath really predict who will and won't die over the coming year?

Yes, report researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who followed up on nearly 600 patients originally enrolled in another study aimed at determining if the test -- which screens for the presence of the NT-proBNP protein, a marker of heart muscle stress -- could help diagnose heart failure in ER patients with shortness of breath. All but five of the 91 patients who died in the year following their initial ER visit had blood levels of the protein over the threshold level determined by the investigators.

In the original study, researchers found the NT-proBNP test was significantly useful in diagnosing people with heart failure. The current study revealed the protein was also linked to a higher risk of death even in people without a heart failure diagnosis. Forty percent of the patients who died during the next year did not have heart failure at the initial ER visit. These other patients were found to have a range of medical problems, such as obstructive airway disease, pneumonia, pulmonary thomboembolism, chest pain or acute coronary syndrome, bacterial sepsis, or cancer.

"Regardless of whether the patient had been diagnosed with heart failure, elevated levels of this protein were strongly prognostic for death at one year, and low-levels identified those at the lowest risk," says study author James Januzzi, Jr., M.D. "Based on these results, we recommend that every patient coming to a hospital with shortness of breath be tested for NP-proBNP."

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SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, 2006;166:315-320