NT-proBNP: Is It a More Significant Risk Factor for Mortality Than Troponin T in Incident Hemodialysis Patients?

Numerous studies have demonstrated that cardiac biomarkers are significant predictors of cardiovascular (CV) and all-cause mortality in ESRD patients, but most of the studies were retrospective or included small numbers of patients, only prevalent dialysis patients, or measured 1 or 2 biomarkers. This study was to analyze the association between 3 cardiac biomarkers and mortality in incident HD patients. A prospective cohort of 864 incident HD patients was followed for 30 months. Based on the median values of baseline NT-proBNP, cTnT, and hsCRP, the patients were divided into “high” and “low” groups, and CV and all-cause mortality were compared between each group. Additionally, time-dependent ROC curves were constructed, and the NRI and IDI of the models with various biomarkers were calculated. The CV survival rates were significantly lower in the “high” NT-proBNP and cTnT groups compared to the corresponding “low” groups, while there was no significant difference in CV survival rate between the 2 hsCRP groups. However, all-cause mortality rates were significantly higher in all 3 “high” groups compared to each lower group. In multivariate analyses, only Ln NT-proBNP was found to be an independent predictor of mortality. Moreover, NT-proBNP was a more prognostic marker for mortality compared to cTnT. In conclusion, NT-proBNP is the biomarker that results in the most added prognostic value on top of traditional risk factors for CV and all-cause mortality in incident HD patients.