This was how Dr. Theresa McDonagh, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, who chaired the Bayer HealthCare satellite symposium held during the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Munich, summarized the presentations given during the event.

In the past, the blood test from Bayer HealthCare has been used primarily to diagnose heart failure. The BNP test is also extremely useful in monitoring treatment of this condition. It was approved by the FDA in June 2004 additionally for prediction of survival rates in patients following myocardial infarction and for estimation of the degree of heart failure. New uses for BNP tests were presented in Munich, and these could also be relevant for the BNP test marketed by Bayer HealthCare once the marketing authorization has been extended.

Dr. Evgenij Potapov from the German Heart Center in Berlin explained that BNP is suitable as a marker for the clinical progression of end-stage heart failure. His investigations have shown that the parameters routinely used to monitor this condition cannot predict the future course of the disease. BNP, on the other hand, provides information which is important in optimizing therapy.

Professor Christian Müller, deputy senior physician of Medical Unit A at Basel University Hospital, talked about the value of BNP in emergency patients with acute shortness of breath. Rapid determination of BNP in conjunction with other clinical information can accelerate diagnosis of the patient's condition and improve treatment.

Professor Christopher Price, Vice President, Global Research Diagnostics Division Bayer HealthCare and Visiting Professor in Clinical Biochemistry, University of Oxford, presented a convincing cost-benefit analysis which showed that BNP is of major importance not only in clinical terms. He compared cost-effective BNP blood tests with the conventional diagnostic approaches like echocardiography.

Dr. Hans Günther Wahl from Marburg University Hospital talked about the factors which can affect BNP levels in patients with impaired renal function. He showed how levels can be influenced by dialysis, for example. This needs to be taken into account in order to achieve the maximum diagnostic accuracy with this important cardiac serum marker.

An estimated 18 million people worldwide - including 1.5 million in Europe and 350,000 in Germany - are affected by heart failure. Approximately 2 to 3 percent of adults have heart failure; above the age of 75 the incidence increases to between 5 and 10 percent. Early diagnosis and therapy are important in reducing the progression of the disease and the associated mortality. The symptoms of heart failure are not specific and may be misdiagnosed. To date, diagnosis has been based largely on the clinical picture, echocardiography and EKG findings. These are very complex and costly procedures.

The BNP test expands Bayer HealthCare's cardiovascular test range, which includes the parameters troponin I, myoglobin and CK-MB, used to diagnose myocardial infarction, and homocysteine, an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

Bayer HealthCare AG, a subgroup of Bayer AG with sales of approximately 8.9 billion Euro in 2003, is one of the world's leading, innovative companies in the health care and medical products industry.

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