NPPB and Stroke: However, the risk of rehospitalization due to HF was increased in the beta-blocker treatment group (HR = 1.740, CI = 1.085–2.789, p=0.022) after adjusting by age, sex, smoke, stroke, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, history of acute myocardial infarction, pulmonary artery pressure, which were the known factors to affect HF rehospitalization, and also adjusting by BNP level and uric acid level, which were associated with HF rehospitalization in univariate regression analysis (Table 2).