Why is bnp ordered

You may want to have someone take you home. A BNP test is done by drawing blood from a vein in your arm using a hypodermic needle. This process is known as venipuncture. The results from the test are usually ready in 15 to 20 minutes. Results may take up to a week to be ready if the blood is sent to a separate laboratory facility for analysis.

Your results will indicate if your BNP levels are high enough to suspect a diagnosis of heart failure. If you already have a diagnosis of heart failure, the results can help your doctor find out whether heart failure treatments are helping treat it.

But normal BNP levels may vary depending on your age and sex. BNP levels increase naturally as you age, and people assigned female at birth typically have higher levels.

Underlying conditions can raise your levels too. Your doctor may use BNP tests alongside other diagnostic tests to confirm if you have heart failure, or if other conditions are responsible for the increase in your BNP levels. This test has a 98 percent success rate in ruling out heart failure as a cause of increased BNP levels. Exercise may cause BNP levels to rise temporarily. Stress can raise your levels of the hormone cortisol, which can also temporarily increase BNP levels.

Improving your heart health can help reduce the effects of heart failure and other heart conditions. Consider these heart-healthy steps and ways to manage heart failure:. Depending on the cause of your heart failure and other conditions, your doctor may recommend the following:.

If high BNP levels indicate heart failure, your doctor will let you know what steps you need to take to prevent complications of this condition.

See your doctor regularly to monitor your BNP levels if needed. Follow any instructions your doctor gives you to maintain your best heart health. Learn about heart failure symptoms, causes, and…. Learn about tips for having a heart-healthy diet and what the research says about the effects of alcohol, calcium, sugar, and caffeine on your heart. Heart disease is one of the leading health risks facing men today. Sources: Mueller C, et al. N Engl J Med. Serum biomarkers provide a modern method of evaluating disease, and are especially used in cardiac disease.

Cardiac troponins are useful in evaluating for acute coronary heart disease. The study by Mueller and colleagues, in Basel, Switzerland, shows how BNP both aids in diagnosis of acute dyspnea and saves money by screening out patients without heart failure.

A BNP level of less than pg per milliliter made the diagnosis of heart failure unlikely, while a level over pg made it very likely. For levels in between, clinical judgment using other criteria was required; patients with acute dyspnea were randomized to receive a BNP level or not.

BNP is a useful diagnostic test for acute congestive heart failure in emergency settings. In the study by Wang and associates, adults without heart failure had a BNP level measured and were followed for about 5 years. This cohort came from the Framingham Offspring Study. It appears that BNP is a maker for risk of cardiac disease similar to levels of blood pressure. I have had patients asking for BNP levels even before these studies were published based on press reports touting something like, "this new cardiac test may be the only test you need!

It's a very serious condition, but treatments have produced major advances. Doctors can usually diagnose advanced CHF on clinical grounds, confirmed by simple studies like chest x-rays, EKGs, and routine blood tests.

But milder CHF can be tricky to recognize, and various lung diseases, liver diseases, and kidney diseases can mimic CHF. So, when doctors suspect CHF, they usually order an echocardiogram to confirm the diagnosis and assess its severity. While the BNP test will never replace echocardiography, it has already helped doctors reserve the test for patients who really need it. In congestive heart failure, the heart chambers are dilated, or enlarged.

Heart muscle cells are stretched as the chambers swell with extra blood that can't be pumped out efficiently. The stretched muscle cells produce extra BNP, which pours into the bloodstream. And doctors now have simple, accurate, inexpensive tests to measure BNP in blood samples. A bedside test can even yield diagnostic information right in the Emergency Department.

The table below lists some of the conditions that can raise or lower BNP levels. BNP is very helpful in determining the outlook for patients with congestive heart failure. In general, the higher the level, the worse it is.

Effective therapy reduces the backup of blood in the heart. The heart chambers get smaller, and as the muscle cells recover from being stretched, they produce less BNP. When doctors see falling BNP levels, they breathe a sigh of relief; more important, their patients breathe better.

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