Prognostic value of N-terminal B-type natriuretic peptide in patients at high risk of systemic inflammatory response syndrome/sepsis

Patients undergoing major surgery are at high risk of postoperative sepsis. Early markers of septic complications would be useful for diagnosis and therapy of patients with sepsis. In contrast to the rather uniform results of studies dealing with other markers of sepsis such as C-reactive protein (CRP), the impact of raised n-terminal B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) levels in the postoperative period is less clear. Furthermore, growing evidence supports the hypothesis that BNP could be an early predictor of sepsis in the ICU. We evaluated the time courses of BNP, CRP and APACHE II score and investigated their role as early markers of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS)/sepsis after major surgery.