Clinical Chemistry Podcast

A View on the Interrelationship between Obesity and Natriuretic Peptide Measurements: Can Dysregulation in pro–B-type Natriuretic Peptide Glycosylation Explain Decreased B-type Natriuretic Peptide Concentrations in Obese Heart Failure Patients? 11.10.2019 9:07 ↓

Obesity is on the rise worldwide and it's a risk factor for systemic hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, and left ventricular hypertrophy, all of which are conditions associated with an increased prevalence of heart failure.  However, the applications of BNP and NT-proBNP as biomarkers in obese patients are limited, as the relationship between their levels and myocardial stiffness is...

Urinary Amino-Terminal Pro–C-Type Natriuretic Peptide: A Novel Marker of Chronic Kidney Disease in Diabetes 11.10.2019 8:20 ↓

A paper appearing in the October 2019 issue of Clinical Chemistry found that fragments of proCNP could be measured in urine from subjects with diabetes mellitus.  The urinary NT-proCNP to creatinine ratio was also more reproduceable than the now commonly used albumin to creatinine ratio and strongly associated with the presence of chronic kidney disease. 

Role of BNP vs NT-proBNP Testing in the Age of New Drug Therapies: Sacubitril-Valsartan 10.10.2019 8:23 ↓

Sacubitril/Valsartan, known as Entresto, is a new dual drug therapy that includes an angiotensin receptor inhibitor and is indicated to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death and hospitalization in patients with chronic heart failure.  Since its approval for the treatment of chronic heart failure with reduced injection fraction, a commonly raised question is whether treatment with this drug chall...

Once-Per-Visit Alerts: A Means to Study Alert Compliance and Reduce Repeat Laboratory Testing 10.10.2019 8:19 ↓

Overutilization of laboratory services is an important unresolved issue in health care.  A recent study that appears in the September 2019 issue of Clinical Chemistry attempts to address this issue.  That paper titled " Once-Per-Visit Alerts: A Means to Study Alert Compliance and Reduce Repeat Laboratory Testing," examined reorders of a laboratory test within the same admission. 

Detection of Neprilysin-Derived BNP Fragments in the Circulation: Possible Insights for Targeted Neprilysin Inhibition Therapy for Heart Failure 01.10.2019 9:58 ↓

B-type natriuretic peptides, or BNP, and N-terminal proBNP, or NT-proBNP, are peptides produced in the heart in response to increased wall stretch and volume overload.  Their production and secretion increases in the heart with the progression of heart failure and they have emerged as useful heart failure biomarkers.  Since the discovery of BNPs in the 1980s, much effort has been made to precisely...

Optimal Use of Biomarkers for Chronic Kidney Disease 23.08.2019 16:51 ↓

In the August 2019 issue of Clinical Chemistry , a Q&A feature titled "Optimal Use of Biomarker for Chronic Kidney Disease" asked five experts in laboratory medicine and nephrology to examine laboratory ordering, testing, and reporting practices, and recommend how those practices should be optimized to better serve patients with CKD. In this podcast, Dr. Greg Miller from the Department of Patholog...