Mortality and cause of death in patients with heart failure: findings at a specialist multidisciplinary heart failure unit.
OBJECTIVE
Heart failure mortality is similar to or even higher than that due to various cancers. It is usually associated with disease progression, though sudden death has also been reported as a frequent cause of mortality. The objectives of this study were to investigate mortality and its causes in outpatients with heart failure of different etiologies who were treated in a specialist multidisciplinary unit, and to identify associated factors.


METHODS
The follow-up cohort study (median duration 36 months) involved 960 patients (70.9% male; median age 69 years; ejection fraction 31%; and the majority had an ischemic etiology and were in functional class II or III).


RESULTS
Overall, 351 deaths (36.5%) occurred: 230 due to cardiovascular causes (65.5%), mainly heart failure (33.2%) and sudden death (16%); 94 due to non-cardiovascular causes (26.8%), mainly malignancies (10.5%) and septic processes (6.8%); and 27 (7.7%) due to unknown causes. Mortality was independently associated with age, sex, functional class, ejection fraction, time since symptom onset, ischemic etiology, diabetes, creatinine clearance rate, peripheral vascular disease, fragility, and the absence of treatment with an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or angiotensin-II receptor blocker, beta-blockers, statins or antiplatelet agents. The principal factor associated with cardiovascular death was an ischemic etiology. No factor studied clearly predicted sudden death.


CONCLUSIONS
Even though mortality in patients treated at a specialist heart failure unit was not low, a quarter died from non-cardiovascular causes. The principal factor associated with cardiovascular death was an ischemic etiology. Only 5.8% of the study population experienced sudden death.
Pons
Ferran
F
Unitat d'Insuficiència Cardíaca, Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol, Badalona, Barcelona, Spain.
Lupón
Josep
J
Urrutia
Agustín
A
González
Beatriz
B
Crespo
Eva
E
Díez
Crisanto
C
Cano
Lucía
L
Cabanes
Roser
R
Altimir
Salvador
S
Coll
Ramón
R
Pascual
Teresa
T
Valle
Vicente
V
D000368:Aged; D002423:Cause of Death; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000401:mortality*; D006757:Hospital Units; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged