Identification of cardiac dysfunction in a GP outpatient setting using handheld echocardiography and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) point of care testing

Diagnostic utility of point-of-care B-type natriuretic peptide and handheld echocardiography in the primary care assessment of patients with suspected heart failure ? the Handheld BNP Study, a four-arm randomised controlled trial

Status

Active, not recruiting

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ISRCTN

Registry ID

ISRCTN21944979

Enrollment

960

Registered

2005-11-30

Start date

2004-03-01

Completion date

Unknown

Last updated

2015-01-13

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Heart failure diagnosis Circulatory System Heart failure

Interventions

This is a four-arm diagnostic cluster-randomised study. GPs are trained and certified by experts to handle the diagnostic tools

each GP diagnoses a predefined number of patients with suspected heart failure using: 1. No additional tools 2. Handheld echocardiography 3. BNP point of care test 4. Handheld echocardiography and BNP

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Inclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria: 1. Age >18 years 2. Written informed consent 3. A diagnosis of heart failure suspected by the GP solely on the grounds of history taking

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion criteria: Diagnosis of heart failure confirmed or excluded earlier

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame
Concordance/discordance of diagnosis between GP and cardiologist.	—

Secondary

Measure	Time frame
1. Agreement between BNP point of care test and BNP reference test at core lab 2. Time needed to train and certify GPs in the different diagnostic tools	—

Countries

Germany

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ISRCTN (via WHO ICTRP) · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026