Abstract
objective: To examine the plasma level of atrial natriuretic peptide(ANP) in patients withchronic renal failure (CRF) undergoing maintenance hemodialysis ( HD) and to evaluate theeffect of superimposed cardiac functional impairment on the plasma level of this hormone.Design: A case- series studySetting: Artificial Kidney and Dialysis Unit of lbn-Sena Teaching Hospital, Mosul; during theperiod from June 2003 to August 2004.Participants: Forty patients with CRF undergoing maintenance HD, were divided into 2 groups depending on presence or absence of heart 6itu[. Group l, includes 20 patients with CRF who did not have heart failure and group Il, includes 20 patients with CRF who had heart failure, The study also includes 20 healthy volunteers as a control group.Methods: Plasma ANP, serum creatinine, urea and body weights were measured in CRFpatients before and after HD. The same parameters were also measured in the control group.The paired-t-test was used to examine the difference in the mean of the studied parameters in patients with CRF before and after HD. The unpaired -t- test was used to assess the difference in the mean of the above-mentioned parameters between patients and control group. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to study the relation of the means of differences between pre and post dialysis values of the studied parameters within each patient group.Results: The mean of plasma ANP level was significantly higher in group I (p
