Is There A Correlation Between Left Atrium Diameter and NT-ProBNP Levels in Resistant Hypertension?

Özet

Objectives: Resistant hypertension (RHT) defines uncontrolled blood pressure despite appropriate treatment and identifies a high-risk population, which may benefit from different diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. This study has investigated the relationship between left atrial diameter (LAD) and N-terminal por-brain type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) levels in true RHT patients with sinus rhythm. Materials and Methods: The outpatient data of Kemalpaşa State Hospital’s cardiology clinic has been reviewed retrospectively. The patients with RHT are included but patients with secondary hypertension, pseudoRHT, atrial fibrillation and left ventricle ejection fraction <50% are excluded from analysis. Age and gender specific cut-off levels have been used for NT-proBNP. Results: Among 74 true RHT patients, 48 were female. The mean age was 61.9±11.2 years. Mean LAD was 40.9±4.0 mm and mean NT-proBNP was 330.3±394.9 pg/ mL. Larger LAD was correlated to higher levels of NTproBNP (r=0.451, p<0.001). Even after controlling for age, gender, heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, partial correlation was continued between LAD and NTproBNP (r=0.234, d.f=67, p<0,05). Conclusion: The current study showed that larger LAD is related to higher levels of NT-proBNP in RHT, which may allow us to use simple echocardiographic parameter to diagnose high-risk patients and hypervolemia instead of NT-proBNP, an expensive biomarker. Because of singlecenter results and limited number of patients, further studies are needed.