Background: Clinical observational studies on heart failure (HF) deal mostly with hospitalized patients, few with chronic outpatients, all with no or limited longitudinal observation.
Methods and results: This is a multicenter, nationwide, prospective observational trial on a population of 5610 patients, 1855 hospitalized for acute HF (AHF) and 3755 outpatients with chronic HF (CHF), followed up for 1 year. The cumulative total mortality rate at 1 year was 24% in AHF (19.2% in 797 patients with de novo HF and 27.7% in 1058 with worsening HF) and 5.9% in CHF. Cardiovascular deaths accounted for 73.1% and 65.3% and HF deaths for 42.4% and 40.5% of total deaths in AHF and CHF patients, respectively. One-year hospitalization rates were 30.7% in AHF and 22.7% in CHF patients. Among the independent predictors of 1-year all-cause death, age, low systolic blood pressure, anemia, and renal dysfunction were identified in both acute and chronic patients. A few additional variables were significant only in AHF (signs of cerebral hypoperfusion, low serum sodium, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and acute pulmonary edema), whereas others were observed only in CHF patients (lower body mass index, higher heart rate, New York Heart Association class, large QRS, and severe mitral regurgitation).
Conclusions: In this contemporary data set, patients with CHF had a relatively low mortality rate compared with those with AHF. Rates of adverse outcomes in patients admitted for AHF remain very high either in-hospital or after discharge. Most deaths were cardiovascular in origin and ≈40% of deaths were directly related to HF.
Keywords: epidemiology; heart failure; prognosis.