ABC | Volume 113, Nº6, December 2019

Short Editorial Admission NT-ProBNP in Myocardial Infarction: an Alert Sign? Luís Beck-da-Silv a Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA), Porto Alegre, RS – Brazil Short Editorial related to the article: The Usefulness of Admission Plasma NT-pro BNP Level to Predict Left Ventricular Aneurysm Formation after Acute ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction Mailing Address: Luís Beck da Silva • Rua Ramiro Barcelos 2350, Postal Code 90035-007, Porto Alegre, RS – Brazil E-mail: lbneto@hcpa.edu.br Keywords Myocardial Infarction; Heart Failure; Ventricular Dysfunction, Left; Natriuretic Peptides/metabolismo; Natriuretic Peptide Brain/metabolism; Echocardiography/diagnostic imaging; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy/methods. DOI: https://doi.org/10.36660/abc.20190685 1. Celebi S, Celebi OO, Cetin S, Cetin HO, Tek M, Gokaslan S, et al. The Usefulness of Admission PlasmaNT-pro BNP Level to Predict Left Ventricular AneurysmFormationafterAcuteST-SegmentElevationMyocardialInfarction. Arq Bras Cardiol. 2019; 113(6):1129-1137 2. Bassan R, Potsch A, Maisel A, Tura B, Villacorta H, Nogueira MV, et al. B-type natriuretic peptide: a novel early blood marker of acute myocardial infarction in patients with chest pain and no ST-segment elevation. Eur Heart J. 2005;26(3):234-40. 3. Cowie MR. BNP-guided therapy for chronic heart failure: anything more than just an attractive concept? Eur Heart J. 2014;35(23):1507-9. 4. Vodovar N, Logeart D. Similar BNP and mortality association in patients with and without heart failure: any increase matters. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2018;71(19):2089-91. References This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License This issue of  Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia  brings a paper entitled “The Usefulness of Admission Plasma NT-pro BNP Level to Predict Left Ventricular Aneurysm Formation after Acute ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction”. 1 The authors bring a cohort of 1,519 post-acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) who were followed‑up for at least six months. Despite its observational and retrograde design, the authors were straightforward in looking for predictive variables that could foresee the occurrence of left ventricular aneurysms (LVA). Among other major clinical aspects such as previous coronary artery bypass graft, post-MI heart failure, younger age, smoking and no-reflow phenomenon; authors highlighted the importance of high NT-proBNP at admission as a predictor of LVA formation after acute STEMI. I would probably highlight one weakness and a potentially positive aspect of their work. The weakness is that a LVA will never be diagnosed by a NT-Pro-BNP level and will always be found, confirmed and/or followed by an image test (Echo, CMR, etc.). NT-ProBNP usually and reliably identifies patients who are sicker or more congested, either in acute, 2 or in chronic heart failure, 3 or even without heart failure. 4 The potentially positive one was, interestingly, what the authors have considered their limitation: that the NT-ProBNP values have been collected at admission. Having a high natriuretic peptide level at the admission of a STEMI patient could be a predictive variable of a clinical event, such as LVA formation, in six months. It was there, on the “Limitations” section, the best and most clinically relevant information. 1138