Abstract
Background. Chronic heart failure is a very important public health problem, and brain natriuretic peptide monitoring may help in its management but faces important logistical problems. A readily available surrogate of brain natriuretic peptide would be of value in this field. We hypothesized that SonR measurements might be this brain natriuretic peptide surrogate.
Methods. Patients with chronic heart failure, left ventricular ejection fraction ≤ 30% and implanted with a cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator able to provide SonR values underwent monthly assessment of brain natriuretic peptide levels for 1 year. The relationship between brain natriuretic peptide levels and paired SonR values was evaluated.
Results. An inverse and highly significant relationship between brain natriuretic peptide levels and paired SonR values was obtained.
Conclusions. We found an inverse and significant relationship between SonR values and brain natriuretic peptide levels. This finding might lead to the use of SonR values to monitor treatment and preclude hospital admissions in patients with chronic heart failure.