title: Heart failure in Korean elderly patients - clinical features, prognosis and prognostic factors.
abstract: Heart failure (HF) is very common in the elderly but there are not sufficient data about the clinical characteristics and prognostic factors of HF among the Asian elderly patients. The aim of the study was to find out the clinical characteristics, survival, and prognostic factors of HF in Korean elderly patients. Among elderly patients admitted from February 1995 to February 1998, the patients with a discharge diagnosis of HF were enrolled. Through the medical record review, the diagnosis was confirmed and clinical parameters to affect survival were identified. Total number of the subjects was 104 [age: 77+/-7 years (65-96), male:female=36:68, follow-up duration: 20+/-14 months, LVEF: 46+/-16%]. Ischemic heart disease (IHD) was the most common cause of HF (42%) followed by valvular heart disease (28%), and hypertension (20%). The 1-year survival rate was 71.3%. Advanced age [risk ratio (RR): 1.41 per 5 years of age; 95% CI: 1.11-1.80] and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (0.69 per 10%, 0.52-0.93), poor initial functional class (2.40, 1.15-5.00), diabetes (2.79, 1.30-5.97) and past history of HF (2.37, 1.10-5.10) badly affected the survival rates. When the Cox proportional hazard model was applied for multivariate analysis, only aging (1.64 per 5 years of age, 1.19-2.28) and diabetes (4.92, 1.83-13.23) predicted poor prognosis. Twenty-seven percent of the patients had diastolic HF (LVEF>45%, LVEDD<55 mm) who had higher survival rates with marginal significance (0.35, 0.10-1.17, P=0.09).
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 28 Yongon-Dong, Chongno-Gu, Seoul 110-744, South Korea.
authors.forename: Y J
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: S Y
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: H Y
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Sung
authors.forename: T J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Youn
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: S Y
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: C H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Y S
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Y W
authors.initials: YW
authors.lastname: Lee