Research on clinical value of galectin-3 in evaluating the prognosis of acute heart failure.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the clinical value of galectin-3 in the prognosis evaluation of acute heart failure.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

A total of 316 patients treated in Suzhou Kowloon Hospital were enrolled into this study and followed up for 1 year. Venous blood during the onset was collected for examinations of blood routine, blood biochemistry, N-terminal B-type pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), galectin-3 and other indexes. Cardiovascular events (CV events) include the re-admission or death due to the recent acute episode of chronic heart failure.

RESULTS

The concentrations of NT-proBNP and galectin-3 in the CV event group were significantly increased compared with those in non-CV event group (p<0.001). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) of NT-proBNP in predicting CV events of patients with acute heart failure within 1 year after discharge was 0.816 and that of galectin-3 was 0.847. Kaplan-Meier survival curve analysis showed that risks of CV events of patients with the NT-proBNP concentration >3013.21 pg/mL and galectin-3 concentration >17.15 ng/mL within 1 year after discharge were significantly higher than those in other groups (p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Galectin-3 can be used as a biomarker for the prognosis evaluation of acute heart failure, and its combined analysis can increase the predictive value of NT-proBNP.