Ján Murín
Natriuretic peptides are heart failure biomarkers in the serum, used in diagnostics, at patient’s prognostication, treatment
planning and nowadays also used in the treatment of the disease. Besides the short history of their development,
it is said, what natriuretic peptides are, where they are synthesised and excreted and mainly where we utilise
them. It began with the diagnostics of heart failure, as the result of their concentration determination in the serum can
be at the disposal quite quickly and so the results serve doctors almost immediately. It proceeded as a possibility to
determine the prognosis of a patient, and according to the height of natriuretic peptides in the serum, mainly at patient’s
discharge after acute cardiac decompensation from the hospital. Dynamics of changes in the serum levels of these
peptides we utilise also in the planning of treatment intensity for a patient. Today we also have so-called high sensitivity
assays for BNP or NT-proBNP detection in the serum, which improves the determination sensitivity . A new medicament
comes, blocking degradation of natriuretic peptides in the organism, and this effect adds a significant benefit
to the effect of nowadays used renin angiotensin aldosterone system blockers. The new medicament has the effect of
the combination of sartan and neprilyzin blocker, which in the other way degrades natriuretic peptides. We expect that
it will improve the prognosis of patients with heart failure. BNP is not suitable for monitoring of the treatment effect,
but NTproBNP is.