Brain Natriuretic Peptide: Potential Adjunct for Cardiac Risk Assessment and Management During Treatment With Experimental Antic

A serum biomarker for monitoring myocardial dysfunction could potentially serve as a valuable adjunct to risk assessment and management when the biomarker is applied during the clinical development of cancer treatments. We explored the potential utility of serum brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), a hormone secreted predominantly by the ventricles in response to increased intracardiac pressure. In diverse clinical settings, elevated BNP has been reported to be a sensitive biomarker for the early (subclinical) diagnosis of congestive heart failure (CHF).1 In the setting of a phase 1 study of an experimental agent for patients with advanced malignancies, we describe 3 cases in which serum BNP presented reliable information about left ventricular (LV) function, independent from or complementary to the results of conventional echocardiography (echo) or radionuclide multigated acquisition scan (MuGA).

View Full Article