The association between admission blood urea nitrogen levels with in-hospital and long-term mortality in ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction

BACKROUND:  The aim of this study was to investigate the association of blood urine nitrogen (BUN) levels with all-cause mortality in ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). METHODS:  This study included 3778 patients with STEMI  treated  with primary percutaneous coronary intervention . An  admission BUN of 17.5 mg/dL was identified through a ROC analysis as an optimal cutoff value to predict the in-hospital mortality with 68% sensitivity and 66% specificity (AUC: 0.75; 95% CI:0.72-0.88; p < 0.001). RESULTS: The patients were followed up for a mean period of  33±0.14  months.  Patients with higher BUN levels had 5.3-times higher in-hospital (OR: 6.0, 95% CI: 4.4-8.3) and  5-times higher long-term (HR: 5.3, 95% CI: 4.2-6.8) mortality rates than patients with lower BUN levels. CONCLUSIONS:  This study demonstrated that elevated BUN level was independently associated with increased in-hospital and long-term mortality. BUN test is simple, inexpensive, and easily bedside applicable method. Hence, it can be used to detect high-risk patients in the setting of STEMI.