Natriuretic Peptide-Guided Therapy in Acute Decompensated Heart Failure: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background

Natriuretic peptides (NP) are widely used to diagnose heart failure (HF), but their role in guiding treatment remains uncertain. We performed a randomized trial meta-analysis comparing NP-guided therapy to usual care in acute decompensated HF.

Methods

We searched PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane for RCTs comparing NP-guided therapy to usual care in acute decompensated HF. Outcomes included all-cause mortality, cardiovascular death, and a composite of mortality and HF hospitalizations (reported as RR and 95% CI). Heterogeneity was assessed using I², and a random-effects model was applied when appropriate. Analyses were performed in R Studio 4.3.2.

Results

We included 9 RCTs with 3992 patients, of whom 2007 (50.3%) underwent NP-guided treatment. The median follow-up was 12 months. All-cause mortality (RR: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.69–1.01; p = 0.069; I² = 41%), cardiovascular death (RR: 0.91; 95% CI: 0.78–1.08; p = 0.287; I² = 0%), and the composite outcome of HF hospitalization or cardiovascular death (RR: 0.91; 95% CI: 0.77–1.09; p = 0.308; I² = 56%) were not significantly different between groups. The time to event analysis of all-cause mortality had a slightly significant advantage in favor of NP-guided therapy (HR: 0.81; 95% CI: 0.69–0.95; p = 0.01; I² = 0%).

Conclusion

Although NP-guided therapy showed a statistically significant benefit in time to all-cause mortality, this was not consistently reflected across other endpoints, and its overall clinical impact remains uncertain.