Brain Natriuretic Peptide as a Risk Marker for Incident Hypertensive Cardiovascular Events

We examined the effects of aging and hypertensive left ventricular hypertrophy on the plasma level of brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), and assessed BNP as a risk marker for incident hypertensive cardiovascular events. One hundred and eighty-five hypertensive patients were echocardiographically divided into a hypertensive group with normal left ventricular mass (n =96; age range, 37-86 years; left ventricular mass, 97±14 g/m2) and a hypertensive group with left ventricular hypertrophy (n =89; 37-90 years; 140±20 g/m2). Forty-four normotensive subjects served as the normotensive group (32-84 years; 91±15 g/m2). We examined the association of age with BNP in the three groups and also evaluated BNP as a risk marker for incident cardiovascular events by following up all patients for 40 months. All three groups demonstrated a significant positive relationship between age and BNP. The slope of the relation between age and BNP was steepest in the hypertensive group with left ventricular hypertrophy (p