title: Usefulness of B-type natriuretic peptide as a noninvasive screening tool for cardiac allograft pathology in pediatric heart transplant recipients.
abstract: We examined the utility of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) in the evaluation of pediatric orthotopic heart transplant recipients for allograft pathology by measuring the serum BNP levels at the time of either screening echocardiography and biopsy, or at the time of clinical rejection. There was a significant difference (p <0.0001) in the BNP levels in 37 patients in the group with evidence of pathology compared with those without evidence. There was also 100% sensitivity and 100% negative predictive value of BNP levels >100 pg/ml for identifying graft pathology.
authors.affiliation: Division of Emergency and Transport Medicine, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and USC Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California 90027, USA. iclaudius@chla.usc.edu
authors.forename: Ilene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Claudius
authors.forename: Yueh-Tze
authors.initials: YT
authors.lastname: Lan
authors.forename: Ruey-Kang
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Glenn T
authors.initials: GT
authors.lastname: Wetzel
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Alejos
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000097:blood*; D016027:Heart Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D020097:Natriuretic Peptide, Brain / Q000097:blood*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
chemical_list: D020097:Natriuretic Peptide, Brain