Heart Failure and Iron Deficiency

Abstract

Heart failure (HF) is a major public health problem because it is one of the most common causes of morbidity and mortality in Western countries, with a prevalence of 1–2% in the adult population, rising to ≥10% in those age >70 years. In addition to the “classic” co-morbidities, such as COPD, arterial hypertension, diabetes, renal failure, etc., there are other conditions frequently found in patients with heart failure that many times are underestimated. One example are anemia and iron deficiency (ID). ID, regardless of anemia impair exercise tolerance, symptoms and quality of life, with a strong negative prognostic impact on hospitalization and mortality rate. Despite strong evidence of high prevalence of ID in these patients and current guidelines recommendations, the diagnosis of ID and its monitoring over time still have low priority for physicians in clinical practice. Consequently ID is under-treated; furthermore current therapies, in particular i.v. iron as ferric carboxymaltose, though effective, turn out to be poorly managed by clinicians. ID should be considered more in real world HF healthcare settings to improve patients’ quality of life and outcome.