Determinants of atrial natriuretic factor levels in coronary heart disease: significance of central pressures, heart chamber volumes and left ventricular mass.

Atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) was determined in pulmonary and systemic arterial plasma during diagnostic left and right heart catheterization in twenty-three patients. In twenty of these patients ANF was subsequently measured in systemic arterial plasma during nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging of the heart with computation of left heart chamber volumes and left ventricular mass. Left ventricular end-diastolic pressure was the strongest independent predictor of pulmonary arterial plasma ANF, whereas cardiac index best predicted aortic plasma ANF. Both pulmonary and aortic plasma ANF correlated with systolic and diastolic pulmonary arterial pressure, left ventricular end-diastolic pressure and cardiac index. Left atrial volume index and left ventricular mass index did not correlate with systemic arterial plasma ANF whereas a positive linear correlation between left ventricular end-diastolic volume index and ANF could be demonstrated (r = 0.61, P less than 0.01). Left ventricular end-diastolic volume index was the most important independent predictor of systemic arterial plasma ANF. Systemic arterial plasma ANF might be a simple marker of left ventricular dilatation in patients with heart disease.