Objectives: Aortic stenosis (AS) and atherosclerosis share similarities when it comes to risk factors and disease progression. Like in other heart diseases, we hypothesized that biomarkers like high-sensitive troponin T (hsTnT), N-terminal-pro-brain-natriuretic-peptide (NT-proBNP) and high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP) could be useful in risk stratification.
Design: A total of 136 patients (57% men, mean age 74 years), referred for evaluation of AS (valve area 0.62 cm(2), left ventricular ejection fraction 64%) were consecutively enrolled in the study. The relationship between hsTnT, hsCRP and NT-proBNP, different echocardiographic parameters of AS and cardiac function were investigated as well as their relation to all-cause mortality.
Results: In contrast to hsCRP, hsTnT and NT-proBNP were individually correlated with prognosis. Regression analysis identified diabetes and the combination of hsTnT and NT-proBNP as significant predictors of all-cause mortality. When analyzing patients without surgery separately, only the combination of hsTnT and NT-proBNP were identified as a significant predictor of all-cause mortality in multivariable analysis.
Conclusion: The combination of NT-proBNP and hsTnT came out as the strongest predictor of outcome irrespective of surgical treatment or not and could be of particular interest in risk-stratification in AS-patients. The results should be confirmed in prospective studies both in symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.