CARDIAC BIOMARKER COULD HELP PREDICT RISK OF CARDIOVASCULAR EVENTS

A blood test for coronary heart disease could help predict which patients are at higher risk than others for adverse cardiovascular events or death, according to a study published in the Jan. 10 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

The findings suggest that a simple blood test to assess the blood level of N-terminal prohormone brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), a cardiac biomarker, could help identify the most at-risk patients and contribute to testing and treatment strategies to reduce that risk, the researchers said.

But before accepting the study results, "it is important to remember that use of a biomarker for triggering or guiding therapy requires more than the demonstration of its correlation with worse clinical outcomes," Marvin Konstam of the Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts-New England Medical Center wrote in an accompanying editorial.