Opportunistic screening for asymptomatic left ventricular dysfunction in type 2 diabetes mellitus

International guidelines recommend natriuretic peptide biomarker-based screening for patients at high heart failure (HF) risk to allow early detection. There have been few reports about the incorporation of screening procedure to existing clinical practice. To implement screening of left ventricular dysfunction in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). A prospective screening study at the DM complication screening centre was performed. Between 2018 and 2019, 1043 patients (age: 63.7±12.4 years; male: 56.3%) with mean glycated haemoglobin of 7.25%±1.34% were recruited. 81.8% patients had concomitant hypertension, 31.1% had coronary artery disease, 8.0% had previous stroke, 5.5% had peripheral artery disease and 30.7% had chronic kidney disease (CKD) stages 3-5. 43 patients (4.1%) had an elevated N-terminal prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) concentration above the age-specific diagnostic thresholds for HF, and 43 patients (4.1%) had newly detected atrial fibrillation (AF). The prevalence of elevated NT-proBNP increased with age from 0.85% in patients aged