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Abstract Background Heart failure (HF) is one of the cardiovascular diseases with high mortality and morbidity and high hospitalization rate, associated with a high degree of disability in terms of quality of life, by reducing exercise capacity and limiting the possibilities to make individual physical effort. Although diagnostic and treatment methods are increasingly complex, mortality and hospitalization rates are still very high, which equals a large consumption of financial resources. Purpose Identifying a potential prognostic parameter could represent in future a salutary solution for prophylactic intervention in the management of patients with decompensated HF. Through the present study, I aimed to identify a potential predictive factor by means of which the risk of rehospitalization and mortality in the first year after the last discharge can be evaluated right from the admission of a patient with decompensated HF. The parameter I set out to research is red cell distribution width (RDW), a parameter easy to obtain by collecting blood samples, that is included in any usual blood count, and expressed in percentages (%), and its normal values are between 12-15%. The data from the current medical literature regarding the prognostic impact of RDW in the population of patients with HF are minimal, being a topic poorly explored. Methods The research was carried out in a retrospective manner on a number of 260 patients with HF, the parameter of interest being RDW. The main objective of my study was to determine if RDW could represent o possible prognostic parameter in HF patients, by exploring if there is a correlation between its increased values and 3 months, 6 months rehospitalization, and 1 year death. The statistical analysis was based on the logistic regression model by which I conceived a mathematical formula represented by the following model: Score (of event occurrence) = event estimation coefficient + RDW estimation coefficient * RDW value (Yi= β0+β1Xi+εi ). To convert the value of the score obtained by applying the above-mentioned formula into probabilities, I applied the following equation: p=1/1+e-score. Results Based on the logistic regression model, the statistical results revealed that HF patients with high RDW (at least 14%) had a higher probability of being readmitted at 3 months, 6 months, and of dying at 1 year, the model being considered statistically significant at a p-value below 0.05. Conclusions Using logistic regression models, the results of my study revealed that certain negative events in patients with HF such as rehospitalization and 1-year death, can be predicted based on the RDW value, therefore we can consider RDW as a future prognostic predictor in patients with HF. 3-month rehospitaliztion based on RDW 6-month rehospitaliztion based on RDW
Andreea M. Catana (Sat,) studied this question.