Comparison between brain natriuretic peptide and calcitonin gene-related peptide in children with dilated cardiomyopathy and controls.

Background: Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is revealed with the left ventricular dilatation and systolic dysfunction.

Objective: This study was performed to determine the level of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) in children with DCM and controls and comparison of these two biomarkers in patients.

Materials and Methods: This study was performed from April 2014 to March 2015 on patients with DCM. The levels of BNP and CGRP were measured by ELISA, and final amounts of biomarkers were compared with the echocardiographic finding.

Results: In this study, the mean age was 10.567 ± 5.50 and 12.135 ± 4.626 years for controls and cases, respectively ( P = 0.321). The majority of echocardiographic indices in the left and right heart had different means in cases and controls ( P < 0.05). Means of BNP were 213.814 ± 309.601 and 2.76 ± 1.013 for case and control, respectively ( P < 0.001). Means of CGRP were 2.278 ± 1.586 and 1.488 ± 0.501 for cases and controls, respectively, ( P = 0.001). In the patients group, however, no significant relationship was observed between CGRP level and Ross classification but observed a direct relationship of Ross classification with BNP (χ2 = 15.845, P < 0.05).

Conclusions: The present research was performed on DCM patients and showed that most echocardiographic parameters, mean of CGRP and mean of BNP increased in patients compared to healthy children. The severity of illness based on the Ross classification showed significant and positive correlation with BNP level but not with CGRP. Probably, it could be concluded that BNP would be a better biomarker in DCM patients.