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Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Chronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary Hypertension and Assessment of Right Ventricular Function in the Piglet
Published on: November 4, 2015
ANP, BNP and D-dimer predict right ventricular dysfunction in patients with acute pulmonary embolism
Henrik Gutte1, Jann Mortensen, Claus V Jensen
1Department of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine & PET, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Background:
The aim of this study was to predict right ventricular dysfunction (RVD) using plasma concentration of D-dimer, pro-atrial natriuretic peptide (pro-ANP), brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), endothelin-1 (ET-1) and cardiac troponin I (TNI) in patients with pulmonary embolism (PE).
Methods:
Patients suspected of PE had a ventilation/perfusion-single-photon emission-tomography (V/Q-SPECT), pulmonary multidetector computer tomography (MDCT) angiography, blood samples and ECG-gated cardiac CT performed the same day.
Results:
Pro-ANP, BNP and D-dimer are associated with significantly elevated levels in PE patients with RVD. ROC curves demonstrated that D-dimer, pro-ANP and BNP were accurate for detection of RVD.
Conclusion:
Because measurements of cardiac biomarkers are inexpensive and easily obtained they may prove useful in the clinical diagnosis of RVD. However because of the small sample size, the results need to be confirmed in larger studies.
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