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Pedro Montes

Publications and source records attributed to Pedro Montes.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

[Utility of NT-proBNP for diagnosing heart failure in a heterogeneous population of patients with dyspnea. Spanish multicenter study].

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Recent studies have shown that brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-terminal proBNP (NT-proBNP) are useful in the diagnosis of heart failure in patients presenting with dyspnea. However, the cutoff values used with these markers vary according to patient characteristics and dyspnea severity. The aim of this study was to investigate the diagnostic accuracy of using the plasma NT-proBNP level for identifying heart failure in a heterogeneous population of patients with dyspnea. METHODS: A multicentre study involving 247 consecutive patients with recent-onset dyspnea was carried out at 12 Spanish hospitals. Patients previously diagnosed with heart failure or any other condition known to cause dyspnea were excluded. RESULTS: Of the 247 patients, 161 (65%) had heart failure. The remaining 86 (35%) presented with dyspnea of non-cardiac origin. Plasma NT-proBNP levels were higher in patients with heart failure (5600 [7988] pg/mL vs 1182 [4406] pg/mL; P=.0001), and increased as functional status deteriorated (P=.036). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.87 (0.02) (95% CI, 0.81-0.91) for the optimum cutoff value of 1335 pg/mL. The sensitivity of this cutoff value for diagnosing heart failure was 77% (95% CI, 70%-83%), the specificity was 92% (95% CI, 84%-97%), the positive predictive value was 94%, and the negative predictive value was 68%. CONCLUSIONS: The plasma NT-proBNP concentration provides an accurate means of diagnosing heart failure. However, the negative predictive value found in this study was somewhat lower than the values found in previous studies involving more homogeneous patient populations.

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PubMed2005

Post-ischemic administration of progesterone in rats exerts neuroprotective effects on the hippocampus.

Progesterone is neuroprotective in models of focal or global ischemia when treatment starts either before the insult or at the onset of reperfusion. In these cases the steroid may act during the occurrence of the early pathophysiological events triggered by ischemia or reperfusion. As opposed to this condition, the aim of the present study was to assess the effect of delayed, post-injury administration of progesterone on the preservation of pyramidal neurons of the hippocampus of rats 21 days after been exposed to global ischemia by the four vessel occlusion model. Progesterone (8 mg/kg, i.v.) or its vehicle, were administered at 20 min, 2, 6, and 24h after the end of ischemia. At histological examination, brains of the ischemic vehicle-treated rats showed a severe reduction of the population of pyramidal neurons in the CA1 and CA2 subfields (12% and 29% remaining neurons, respectively), and a less severe neuronal loss in the CA3 and CA4 subfields of the hippocampus (68% and 63% remaining neurons, respectively), as compared to rats exposed to sham procedures. They also showed a two-fold enlargement of the lateral ventricles and 33% shrinkage of the cerebral cortex as compared to the sham group. Progesterone treatment resulted in a significant preservation of pyramidal neurons in CA1 and CA2 (40% and 62% remaining neurons), with no ventricular dilation and only a mild (12%) cortical shrinkage. Results suggest that progesterone is able to interfere with some late pathophysiological mechanisms leading both to selective neuronal damage in the hippocampal CA1 and CA2 subfields, and to shrinkage of the cerebral cortex.

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