12 with insufficient data, 57 with acute coronary syndrome, 77 with admission systolic blood pressure (SBP) <100 mmHg, and 23 with end-stage renal disease requiring hemodialysis. Consequently, 742 patients were included in the final analysis ( Figure 1A). Patients who started to receive carperitide ≤24 h after admission were assigned to the carperitide group. The carperitide group consisted of 219 patients, 216 (98.6%) of whom started to receive carperitide at the time of admission. In the non-carperitide group, which consisted of 523 patients, only 25 patients (4.8%) received carperitide >24 h after admission, and the remainder did not receive carperitide at all.We compared the short-and long-term outcomes between the carperitide and non-carperitide groups, stratified according to the degree of pulmonary congestion. Of the 742 patients, 358 had moderate-severe pulmonary congestion (carperitide group, n=140; 39.1%; non-carperitide group, n=218; 60.9%) and 384 had no-mild pulmonary congestion (carperitide group, n=79; 20.6%; non-carperitide group, n=305; 79.4%; Figure 1A).The effects of carperitide were assessed based on an as-treated analysis. Follow-up was commenced on the day of admission.The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board. The study was conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki and the A cute heart failure (AHF) is the most common cause of hospitalization in many countries. It is associated with high in-hospital and post-discharge mortality rates and rehospitalization rates. A few promising drugs for AHF have been developed and are currently under investigation, but they have yet to fully improve clinical outcome.Since the launch of carperitide in 1995, a low-dose regimen has been widely used for treating AHF in Japan, following previous Japanese studies showing that its cardiorenal protective effect improves prognosis. 1-4 Recently, carperitide was found to increase the in-hospital mortality rate in AHF patients, and the effects of carperitide on the prognosis of AHF are currently controversial. 5, 6 We hypothesized that carperitide is effective in treating AHF with pulmonary congestion by promoting diuresis and vasodilation. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of carperitide in AHF according to the degree of pulmonary congestion. Background: Carperitide is used to treat acute heart failure (AHF) in Japan. Whether the degree of pulmonary congestion is associated with the effects of carperitide on AHF is unclear.
Methods
Study Design and Subjects