The combination of BNP with age, the history of or newly detected atrial fibrillation and heart failure in comparison of a nested model had a higher discriminatory accuracy than age, atrial fibrillation and heart failure alone (AUC 0.79, (95%CI 0.75–0.84) vs. AUC 0.75 (95% CI 0.70–0.80, p = 0.008 for comparison). Here, NPPB is linked to atrial fibrillation.