Assessing myocardial indices and inflammatory factors to determine anxiety and depression severity in patients with chronic heart failure

BACKGROUND Patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) have a progressive disease that is associated with poor quality of life and high mortality. Many patients experience anxiety and depression (A&D) symptoms, which can further accelerate disease progression. We hypothesized that indicators of myocardial function and inflammatory stress may reflect the severity of A&D symptoms in patients with CHF. Changes in these biomarkers could potentially predict whether A&D symptoms will deteriorate further in these individuals. AIM To measure changes in cardiac and inflammatory markers in patients with CHF to determine A&D severity and predict outcomes. METHODS We retrospectively analyzed 233 patients with CHF treated at the Jingzhou Hospital, Yangtze University between 2018-2022 and grouped them according to Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) scores. We compared clinical data in the no-A&D, mild-A&D, moderate-A&D, and severe-A&D groups, the SAS and SDS scores with the New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional classification, and cardiac markers and inflammatory factors between the no/mild-A&D and moderate/severe-A&D groups. Regression analysis was performed on the markers with P < 0.05 to determine their ability to predict A&D severity in patients and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) was used to evaluate their accuracy. RESULTS In the inter-group comparison, the following variables had an effect on A&D severity in patients with CHF: NYHA class, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), left ventricular end-diastolic diameter, N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (P < 0.05). Other variables did not differ significantly between the A&D groups (P > 0.05). In addition, we found that higher NYHA classes were associated with higher the SAS and SDS scores (P < 0.05). Regression analysis showed that LVEF, NT-proBNP, and IL-6 were independent risk factors for A&D severity (P < 0.05). Among them, NT-proBNP had the best predictive ability as a single indicator (AUROC = 0.781). Furthermore, the combination of these three indicators exhibited a good predictive effect toward discriminating the extent of A&D severity among patients (AUROC = 0.875). CONCLUSION Cardiac and inflammatory biomarkers, such as LVEF, NT-proBNP, and IL-6, are correlated with A&D severity in patients with CHF and have predictive value.