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Although a previous randomized study showed that the use of atrial natriuretic peptide (carperitide) improved the long-term prognosis of patients with heart failure, its effect on short-term prognosis remains unclear. We retrospectively identified patients who were admitted to our tertiary-care center with acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF) between April 2009 and December 2013.We divided the eligible patients into two groups: patients who started receiving carperitide on the day of admission (carperitide group) and those who did not receive carperitide during hospitalization (control group). We compared the in-hospital mortality between the two groups using propensity scores derived from 40 baseline variables. We identified 879 eligible patients (mean age, 75.2 years; male, 56.7%), including 336 (38.2%) in the carperitide group and 543 (61.8%) in the control group. One-to-one propensity score matching created 177 pairs. Although the unmatched analysis found a significantly lower in-hospital mortality in the carperitide group than in the control group (3.3% vs. 7.9%, respectively, p = 0.005), the propensity score-matched analysis found no significant difference in in-hospital mortality between the two groups [4.0% vs. 5.1%, p = 0.609; risk difference, -1.1%, 95% confidence interval (CI), -5.5-3.2%]. Logistic regression analysis with adjustment for propensity scores also found no significant association between carperitide use and in-hospital mortality (adjusted odds ratio, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.29 to 1.28; p = 0.605). The present retrospective study showed that carperitide use as the initial treatment was not significantly associated with lower in-hospital mortality in patients with ADHF.

patients (72%) experienced local or systemic cancer progression at subsequent time points. CTC count at the first time point post-RT was significantly associated with reduced progression free survival when evaluated as a continuous variable on Cox regression analysis (HR = 1.007, P = 0.007). During the follow up period, on logistic regression, CTC > 15/ ml at a given time point was significantly associated with clinical disease progression within the subsequent 6 months (OR 3.31, P = 0.007). An increase in CTCs to > 15/ml preceded radiographic or biochemical progression in 8 of 31 (26%) of patients who progressed. Conclusion: Our data suggests CTCs may serve as a biomarker for disease control in oligometastatic disease and may predict future disease progression prior to standard of care assessments for patients receiving diverse therapies.

The underlying molecular mechanisms of PV stenosis remain unknown. One likely mechanism is intense periadventitial inflammation or collagen deposition, which may compromise or

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