NPPB and brain infarction: Seven of the 16 included studies (Makikallio et al., 2005 [25], Yuan et al., 2005 [26], Yip et al., 2006 [27], Fang et al., 2008 [12], Chen et al., 2012 [28], Altun et al., 2016 [20], Wang et al., 2018 [9]) compared NT-proBNP levels between those with a brain infarction and healthy people, while three (Fang et al., 2008 [12], Chen et al., 2012 [28], Niu et al., 2017 [16]) explicitly stated the discrepancies between brain hemorrhage and control groups.