Differences in clinical features and 1-year outcomes of patients with heart failure and reduced, mildly reduced, and preserved ejection fraction in a contemporary cohort: is the clinical profile changing?

Abstract

Aims: To analyze in a contemporary registry of heart failure (HF) patients followed in specialized HF units in Spain, the differences in clinical features, treatment, and 1-year outcomes in HF with reduced, mildly reduced, and preserved left ventricular ejection fraction.

Methods and results: We analyzed data from the registry of the SEC-Excelente-IC quality accreditation program of the Spanish Society of Cardiology, with 1716 patients with HF included between 2019 and 2021 by 45 specialized HF units accredited by the SEC. Treatment and 1-year mortality, HF hospitalizations and decompensations of HF used were compared according to the type of HF. Of the 1,716 patients, 55.5% had HFrEF, 11.9% had HFmrEF, and 32.6% had HFpEF. HFpEF patients were older and had a higher proportion of women, atrial fibrillation, and hypertension. Sacubitril-valsartan and mineral receptor antagonists were used in greater proportion in HFrEF (56.5% and 73%, respectively, p < 0.001), but also in 10.3 and 33% in HFpEF. One-year mortality (17.3 vs 20.9 vs 15.6/100 persons-year; p = 0.321), 1-year HF hospitalizations (34.4 vs 29.5 vs 26.7/100 persons-year; p = 0.330), and 1-year decompensations of HF without hospitalization (13.1 vs 10.4 vs 11.1; p = 0.393) were similar for the 3 types of HF.

Conclusion: In our contemporary cohort of real-life HF patients, slight differences were observed in clinical features and treatment between the 3 types of HF, but the prevalence of most of the major comorbidities and 1-year outcomes (mortality, hospitalizations and decompensations of HF) were similar in the 3 groups.