Correlation of Limb Bioimpedance to Echocardiographic Indicators of Congestion in Patients with NYHA Class II/III Heart Failure

The treatment of heart failure (HF) in the United States is estimated to exceed $30 billion each year and is anticipated to increase to a staggering $70 billion by the year 2030. This makes the management of HF one of the leading challenges Medicare will face in the years to come. Traditional methods to detect impending congestion such as body weight and physical examination findings are often non-specific and lack sensitivity making them inadequate to recognize fluid overload and prevent decompensation. It has been suggested that bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) can be used as a surrogate marker for detecting fluid overload and therefore, serve as an adjunct to clinical exam findings.