Readmission Following Both Cardiac and Non-Cardiac Acute Dyspnoea is Associated with a Striking Risk of Death

Figure 1. Rates of unplanned all‐cause first hospital readmission in the first 6 months in (A) acute dyspnoea (n = 1371), (B) acute heart failure (AHF) (n = 731), and (C) non‐AHF (n = 640) patients of the derivation LEDA cohort. CV, cardiovascular; NCV, non‐cardiovascular.

Figure 2. Trajectory of acute dyspnoea patients within 12 months after index admission in the LEDA derivation cohort. Almost half of the patients were readmitted at 6 months. A small percentage of patients died without being readmitted at 6 months (in purple). Patients who were readmitted died strikingly more frequently at 1 year than patients who were not readmitted at 6 months (32% vs. 10%, respectively, P < 0.001). Red = (re)admitted due to cardiovascular (CV) causes; blue = (re)admitted due to non‐CV causes; green = survived without readmission; purple = died. AHF, acute heart failure. *Died at 6 months without readmission.

Figure 3. Primary and secondary endpoints: relationship between all‐cause readmissions and 1 year all‐cause mortality in (I) derivation LEDA and (II) validation BASEL V cohorts. The figure depicts Cox hazard proportional regression results adjusted with age, gender, co‐morbidities (history of chronic heart failure, coronary artery disease, and diabetes mellitus), systolic blood pressure, heart rate, creatinine, and sodium <136 mmol/L. The size of the point represents sample size of readmitted patients in a group. (A) Risk of death depending on the exact time or readmission. (B) First readmission in any time in the 6 months following index admission in acute heart failure (AHF) and non‐AHF groups. (C) Analysis for cardiovascular (CV) and non‐CV causes of readmissions. aHR, adjusted hazard ratio; CI, confidence interval.

Figure 4. Secondary endpoint: the relationship between all‐cause readmission and 1 year all‐cause mortality in the subgroups of (I) derivation LEDA and (II) validation BASEL V cohorts. The size of the point represents the readmitted sample size in a group. CI, confidence interval; COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; HF, heart failure; hs‐TnT, high‐sensitivity troponin T; LVEF, left ventricular ejection fraction; NT‐pro‐BNP, N‐terminal pro‐B‐type natriuretic peptide.