Predictors of incident heart failure in a cohort of patients with ischemic heart disease

INTRODUCTION: heart failure (HF) is a major complication following ischemic heart disease (IHD) and it adversely affects the outcome. The objective of this study was to identify predictors of HF in patients with IHD. METHODS: this is a 24-month longitudinal retrospective study of all consecutive patients diagnosed with IHD. Endpoints were incident HF and time to incident HF. Patients with a previous history of HF were excluded. RESULTS: a total of 306 patients with IHD were included in the analysis. The 6-month, 12-month and 18-month cumulative risk of developing incident HF were 18.8%, 28.4%, and 53.5% respectively. Increasing age, female gender, diabetes mellitus (DM), lower hemoglobin, and dilated left atrium were strong predictors of incident HF. Predictors of shorter time to incident HF were coexisting DM and hypertension, and the presence of dilated left atrium in patients with left ventricular ejection fraction < 40%. The strongest predictor of incident HF in patients with DM was a higher level of LDL cholesterol. CONCLUSION: patients with IHD have a higher risk of incident HF. Strong predictors of incident HF in these patients were increasing age, female gender, DM, lower hemoglobin and dilated left atrium. Such patients need close follow-up and more intensive treatment.