Background: B-type natriuretic peptide is useful to diagnose heart failure. We determined whether the use of serial B-type natriuretic peptide measurements to guide treatment improves the outcome in patients with acute heart failure.
Methods and results: We conducted a randomized controlled trial of patients with acute heart failure in 10 academic and community emergency departments. The experimental group received serial B-type natriuretic peptide testing (at 3, 6, 9, and 12 hours then daily). The control group received usual care. Our outcomes were hospital length of stay, 30-day readmission rate, and all-cause mortality. There were 219 controls and 228 experimental patients. Mean age was 64 years, 49% were women, 58% were blacks, and 34% were whites. Groups were similar in baseline characteristics. Comparing the serial testing with the control group, there was no difference in length of stay (6.5 days [95% CI, 5.2 to 7.9] versus 6.5 days [95% CI, 5.6 to 7.3]; difference, 0.1 [95% CI, -1.7 to 1.5]), in-hospital mortality (2.2% [95% CI, 0.9 to 5.0] versus controls, 3.2% [95% CI, 1.6 to 6.5]; difference, 1.0% [95% CI, -2.3 to 4.5]), 30-day mortality (3.7% [95% CI, 1.8 to 7.5] versus 5.5% [95% CI, 3.0 to 9.8]; difference, 1.8% [95% CI, -2.8 to 6.5]), or hospital revisit rate (20.2% [95% CI, 15.0 to 26.6] versus 23.7% [95% CI, 18.0 to 30.6]; difference, 3.5% [95% CI, -5.1 to 12.1]).
Conclusions: In this study of 447 patients hospitalized for suspected heart failure, we were unable to demonstrate a benefit of serial testing with B-type natriuretic peptide in terms of hospital length of stay, mortality, or readmission rate.