Figure 4.

Plasma BNP assay on the day of the patients' enrollment and the day of discharge. In the group of patients with pneumonia accompanied by heart failure, the BNP levels upon enrollment were significantly higher than those prior to discharge (*P<0.05), whereas no significant difference was observed between the BNP levels of the specimens from patients with simple pneumonia collected at the two time-points. Data are presented as the mean ± standard deviation. BNP, B-type natriuretic peptide.