NPPB and congestive heart failure: To reinforce those prior findings, another study performed in an independent setting found that BNP, pro-BNP, creatine kinase (CK)-MB, and MMP-2 have high predictive values for short-term mortality even in the presence of a decreased ejection fraction and other clinical signs of congestive heart failure, which were all found to be associated with severe chagasic cardiomyopathy in a Bolivian cohort (9).