New Blood Test Can Help Predict Risk of Stroke, Heart Attack and Heart Failure

A simple blood test measuring the amount of a protein called NT-proBNP was recently shown to be highly predictive of cardiovascular events in patients with established coronary heart disease.
In a study of almost 1,000 heart patients believed to have stable heart disease, those with the highest blood levels of the protein were eight times more likely to have a heart attack, stroke or heart failure during the 3.7-year study than those with the lowest levels of NT-proBNP.

Among the study participants, patients with highest NT-proBNP level had the strongest association with heart failure. Eighty cases of heart failure were reported during the study, compared with only three cases among patients with the lowest protein levels. There were four times as many heart attacks and four times as many strokes in study patients with the highest NT-proBNP levels, compared to those with lower protein measurements.

The test is already in use in hospital emergency departments to assist ER doctors in identifying heart failure in patients presenting with shortness of breath and other established symptoms. In addition to echocardiograms, stress tests, and other protein biomarkers, the new blood test may be able help physicians to pinpoint heart patients with the highest risks.

Looking at other risk factors such as sex, age, smoking, and elevated cholesterol levels, this new maker provides additional information that other tests don’t reveal. It is still unclear, however, whether the test is valuable for predicting risk in asymptomatic heart patients thought to have stabilized their heart disease.

Also unknown is whether the test could prove useful for identifying heart disease risk in the general public. At this point, it is best utilized with patients with established heart disease. Its role in disease management is still not clear. Those with elevated NT-proBNP can be treated very aggressively, but most patients with serious heart conditions are already being treated in that manner.

More study is needed to determine the value of the NT-proBNP test, the subject of the study at the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco VA Medical Center.

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