BNP and NT-proBNP are two of the most ordered blood tests in emergency medicine, and both are byproducts of the same hormonal pressure-relief system the heart uses to protect itself from volume overload. How the natriuretic peptide system actually works, why cleaving one prohormone produces two clinically useful biomarkers with different behavior, what the reference ranges really mean, and why the same drug class that treats heart failure also quietly breaks one of the two tests.
Diagnostics
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Natriuretic Peptides as Diagnostics: How a Hormone Became a Blood Test