title: Retraction. rhBNP therapy can improve clinical outcomes and reduce in-hospital mortality compared with dobutamine in heart failure patients: a meta-analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  A meta-analysis was performed to compare the therapeutic outcomes in patients treated for heart failure (HF) with recombinant human brain natriuretic peptide (rhBNP) and dobutamine.
  
  
  METHODS
  PubMed, Embase and the Chinese Biomedical Database were exhaustively searched to identify studies relevant to this meta-analysis. Eight cohort studies were found suitable for inclusion. Data regarding trial validity, methodological processes and clinical outcomes were extracted.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients treated with rhBNP showed statistically significant reduction of in-hospital mortality and re-admission rates compared with the dobutamine treated patient group (both P < 0.05). Further, the rhBNP treated patient group showed higher survival outcomes, compared with dobutamine treated patients, when the post-treatment follow-up period was longer than 6 months (P < 0.05). Stratified analysis based on ethnicity showed a dramatic decrease of in-hospital mortality among mixed race HF patients receiving rhBNP treatment (P < 0.05), but such decreases were not statistically significant in Asian and Caucasian populations (both P > 0.05). On the other hand, re-admission rates were significantly lower in rhBNP treated Caucasian and mixed race populations (both P < 0.05). Notably, in rhBNP treated group, dose levels of 0.015 and 0.03 incrementally lowered the re-admission rates, displaying dose effect, and the re-admission rates at both rhBNP doses were significantly lower than the dobutamine treated group (both P < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our meta-analysis results suggested that rhBNP therapy is associated with lower in-hospital mortality and re-admission rates in HF patients compared to the dobutamine regimen. Nevertheless, large scale prospective, randomized trials are necessary to confirm these findings.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, ICU, Affiliated Zhongshan Hospital of Dalian University, Dalian, 116000, Liaoning Province, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Ming-Yi
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Lv
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, ICU, Affiliated Zhongshan Hospital of Dalian University, Dalian, 116000, Liaoning Province, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Shu-Ling
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, ICU, Affiliated Zhongshan Hospital of Dalian University, Dalian, 116000, Liaoning Province, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Feng
authors.initials: XF
authors.lastname: Long
keywords: dobutamine; heart failure; in-hospital mortality; meta-analysis; re-admission; recombinant human brain natriuretic peptide