Heart failure represents the final stage for many cardiovascular diseases and is one of the main causes of hospitalization and death in the Western world. A recent study has identified a method that analyzes the presence of three biomarkers in the blood, allowing us to predict the outcome of patients with heart failure and evaluate the probability of hospitalization.
Predicting the patient outcome through science
Italy is at the forefront with this study, published in the prestigious Journal of the American College of Cardiology and conducted by Italian researchers from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa and the Gabriele Monasterio Foundation (Michele Emdin, Alberto Aimo, Claudio Passino, Giuseppe Vergaro, Andrea Ripoli) alongside scholars from important European and American research centers. Researchers have demonstrated that the quantity of three biomarkers in the blood can give important information about the clinical outcomes of patients with heart disease.
The three biomarkers that make up this research are:
- Soluble Sst2 receptor, an important indicator of the activation of pathways that cause the heart to weaken through fibrosis
- Cardiac hormone Nt-probnp, for the hemodynamic measurement of decompensated heart failure
- High-sensitive cardiac troponin T, indicator of cell death.
In order to predict “reliable” outcomes, the data from each of the three biomarkers must be cross-correlated. Data was gathered from 4,268 patients with decompensated heart failure and analyzed through advanced statistical methods. Findings demonstrated that the analysis of all three biomarkers allows for risk stratification at an individual level, classifying patients into low, medium or high risk groups and, consequently, helps determine the type of therapy to be administered and how often follow-up visits should be scheduled.
Moving towards more specific therapies
One of the important new points of the study is the dose of sSt2. Routinely used to diagnose acute myocardial infarction, sSt2 is now also used as a new instrument in decompensated heart failure along with the hormone Nt-probnp and troponin. “It’s definitely an original observation”, states cardiologists Michele Emdin and Claudio Passino, “which has aroused great interest in the world of cardiology across the globe. The results published confirm the importance of combining these three biomarkers for the integrated assessment of patients with cardiac diseases, as well as the development of new diagnostic instruments and new treatments for more frequent and dangerous diseases”. Without a doubt these findings give new hope to patients with heart disease and represent an important breakthrough in precision medicine, providing a new diagnostic instrument to rely on for more personalized treatment.
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