Comparative assessment of N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide, nitric oxide and echocardiography for diagnosis of dilated cardiomyopathy in dogs

The aim of the study was to evaluate the clinical usefulness of N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-Pro BNP) and nitric oxide (NO) with echocardiography (gold standard test) in diagnosis of canine cardiomyopathy. Out of 374 cases, 82 cases showing cardiovascular abnormalities including 16 cases of cardiomyopathy were further selected for standardization of biomarkers. Significant (P<0.01) increase in plasma NT-Pro BNP was found in dogs with cardiomyopathies. The plasma concentration of NO showed non-significant increase in comparison to healthy dogs. The sensitivity of NT-Pro BNP and NO was 72.20% and 62.50%, with specificity 93.90% and 89.40%, respectively when compared with echocardiography. The correlation between echocardiography and NT-Pro BNP was 89.30% with kappa value of 0.675 suggesting substantial agreement between the two tests. The positive and negative predictive value was estimated at 0.765 and 0.925, respectively. It is concluded that NT-Pro BNP and NO may be an alternate diagnostic tool for diagnosis of cardiomyopathy where the facility of echocardiography is not available.