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Figure 1 Kaplan-Meier survival curves for cardiac mortality of patient groups stratified by the results of natriuretic peptide and ejection fraction (EF) measurements: (A) for atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), the best cut-off point was at the 60th percentile; (B) for N-terminal atrial natriuretic propeptide (N-ANP), the best cut-off point was at the 85th percentile; (C) for brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), the best cut-off point was at the 60th quartile; (D) for EF, the cut-off point was at the lowest quartile.