Think heart failure 1st
Early diagnosis transforms lives.
Are you seeing patients with?:
Request an NT-proBNP test for
patients with these symptoms
to support an early and accurate
diagnosis of heart failure¹,
and potentially save your practice
time in reduced repeat appointments².
Breathlessness
Swollen legs and/or ankles
Fatigue
It is crucial to test your patients' NTproBNP levels if they present with any one of these symptoms and suspect heart failure.
Heart failure can affect all ages and genders. Keep an open mind if a patient presents with one or more of these key symptoms.
One simple test could help transform lives.
Triage patients at need
of urgent specialist
assessment3
Costs less than £28 per
patient (compared to £337
for an echocardiogram)4
Rule-out heart failure and
reduce pressure on
echocardiography services1
Early and accurate diagnosis of
heart failure has the potential to
reduce rates of misdiagnosis and
GP appointments2
An early diagnosis of heart failure can:
Enable faster access to
life-saving treatments6
Reduce emergency
hospital admissions6
© NICE [2018] Chronic heart failure in adults: diagnosis and management. Available from www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng106. All rights reserved. Subject to Notice of rights.
NICE guidance is prepared for the National Health Service in England. All NICE guidance is subject to regular review and may be updated or withdrawn. NICE accepts no responsibility for the use of its content in this product/publication.
NICE guidelines recommend that testing for NT-proBNP should be the priority test when patients present with any of the symptoms of heart failure.
Yet currently less than 24% of patients have an NT-proBNP test prior to a heart failure diagnosis7.
8 in 10 patients receive their diagnosis following a hospital admission, despite 4 in 10 presenting with symptoms to their GP in the years prior to their diagnosis with one of these key symptoms7.
Just ONE quick test can rule out heart failure
What is NT-proBNP?
NT-proBNP is a form of natriuretic peptide (NP) released by cardiac tissue in response to volume and/or pressure overload that causes the walls of the heart to stretch. NPs promote natriuresis and diuresis and act as vasodilators, to help regulate this pressure.8
Why test for NT-proBNP?
NT-proBNP has a very high diagnostic sensitivity for heart failure and testing in patients with symptoms delivers a fast route to ruling out heart failure as a diagnosis. High levels of NT-proBNP are associated with a poor prognosis. Patients with values >2,000 ng/l are at greater risk of death9. High levels therefore indicate the need for urgent referral3.
Understand the results
The following information has been sourced from the NICE guidelines. High levels of natriuretic peptides are associated with a poor prognosis and indicate the need for urgent referral and management.
If you’ve had trouble accessing the NT-proBNP test, contact Roche and we’ll be happy to help.
People with heart failure are often living with several long term conditions; a large study using UK data found that 79% of people with heart failure had three or more comorbidities.10 Patients may assume their symptoms are related to these other conditions or to side effects of medications they are taking. In a survey of 110 primary care clinicians, 80% reported that multiple comorbidities were the biggest challenge in recognising potential heart failure in patients.11
Respiratory comorbidities, renal dysfunction, anaemia, arthritis, cognitive dysfunction and depression, among others, often lead to heart failure being overlooked in primary care.12
Co-existence of type 2 diabetes and heart failure is associated with worse symptoms and quality of life, a greater burden of heart failure hospitalisation, and higher mortality rates compared to patients without type 2 diabetes mellitus.13
Of those who were tested by their
GP, 74.7% were men and 25.3%
were women16
Women were almost twice
as likely to be misdiagnosed
than men16
