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Continuous data were described with median and range. Differences in quantitative variables between subgroups were tested http://www.selleck.cn/products/SP600125.html for significance by the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test. The Fisher exact test or ��2 test was used to compare categorical variables, as appropriate. Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to assess the ability (by calculating the area under the ROC curve) of NT-proBNP and BNP to recognize patients with heart involvement, as well as their performance in identifying patients who died within 1 year from evaluation. Survival curves were plotted according to Kaplan�CMeier and differences in survival were tested for significance by the log-rank test. Cox models were fitted to compute hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals for death for a series of potential predictors. Alternative multivariable models were fitted including either NT-proBNP or BNP given the collinearity of the two natriuretic peptides. MedCalc http://www.selleckchem.com/products/epz015666.html 11 (Medcal Software, Belgium) and Statistica 8 (StatSoft, Tulsa, OK) were used for computation. Two-hundred forty-eight consecutive patients with AL amyloidosis were prospectively enrolled. Of them, 109 (44%) had preserved renal function (Group 1), 77 (31%) had moderate to severe renal failure (Group 2), and 62 (25%) had end-stage kidney failure (Group 3). Amongst patients in Group 3, 53 (85%) were on dialysis (49 hemodialysis and 4 peritoneal dialysis). The clinical characteristics of the 248 patients are reported in Table I. As expected, despite there were no significant differences in the frequency and severity of heart involvement as assessed by echocardiography between the three groups, patients in Groups 3 had higher BNP and NT-proBNP concentrations and NT-proBNP/BNP ratios than patients included in Groups 1 and 2. Also, patients with end-stage renal disease were more likely to have received previous treatment compared to other patients. This was expected, since only few patients with AL amyloidosis have end-stage renal failure at presentation [14]. Figure 1 depicts the concentration of BNP and NT-proBNP in the three groups according to the presence of heart involvement at echocardiography. As previously reported by our group [2], no patient who met the echocardiographic criteria http://www.selleckchem.com/products/smoothened-agonist-sag-hcl.html of amyloid heart involvement had a normal NT-proBNP. Conversely, BNP was within reference range (