Fig. 2

The mediation effect of adiponectin (APN) on the association between NT-proBNP and right ventricular dysfunction. a is the coefficient between log NT-ProBNP and log adiponectin (a = 0.22, 95%CI 0.04, 0.41, p = 0.023). b is the coefficient between log adiponectin and TAPSE (b = − 6.2, 95%CI -11.0, − 1.4, p = 0.02). c is the coefficient between log NT-proBNP and TAPSE (c = − 5.4, 95%CI -9.4, − 1.5, p = 0.013). The coefficient c’ between log NT-proBNP and TAPSE becomes insignificant when log adiponectin is included in the model (c’ = − 3.7, 95%CI -7.5, 0.1, p = 0.067). These results reveal that the association between NT-proBNP and right ventricular dysfunction, as assessed by TAPSE, is fully mediated by APN. TAPSE, tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion