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1 year mortality after first hospital admission for heart failure was similar in patients with preserved or reduced ejection fraction

Clinical impact ratings IM/Ambulatory care Internal medicine Cardiology

Key Words: heart failure (congestive) • patient readmission • stroke volume

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

METHODS
Design: inception cohort followed for 1 year.

Setting: 103 teaching and community hospitals in Ontario, Canada.

Patients: 880 patients (mean age 75 y, 66% women) with preserved EF (>50%) and 1570 patients (mean age 72 y, 63% men) with reduced EF (<40%). Patients were included if they had a first time hospital admission for HF (defined by Framingham study criteria) between 1 April 1999 and 31 March 2001 and documented evaluation of left ventricular EF at admission. Exclusion criteria were age 105 years, transfer from another hospital, HF that developed after admission, or severe primary left sided valvular abnormality. 352 patients with borderline EF (40–50%) were omitted from the analysis.

Prognostic factor: EF.

Outcomes: death from any cause, hospital readmission for HF, and in-hospital complications.

MAIN RESULTS
9945 patients met the criteria for HF, but 6492 did not have EF measured or recorded and 649 were excluded because of severe left sided . . . [Full text of this article]

Ali Ahmed, MD, MPH

University of Alabama at Birmingham and VA Medical Center,
Birmingham, Alabama, USA