Non-cardiac comorbidities and mortality in patients with heart failure with reduced vs. preserved ejection fraction: a study using the Swedish Heart Failure Registry

Heart failure (HF) and non-cardiac comorbidities often coexist and are known to have an adverse effect on outcome. However, the prevalence and prognostic impact of non-cardiac comorbidities in patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) vs. those with preserved (HFpEF) remain inadequately studied.

We used data from the Swedish Heart Failure Registry from 2000 to 2012. HFrEF was defined as EF < 50% and HFpEF as EF ≥ 50%. Of 31 344 patients available for analysis, 79.3% (n = 24 856) had HFrEF and 20.7% (n = 6 488) HFpEF. The outcome was all-cause mortality. We examined the association between ten non-cardiac comorbidities and mortality and its interaction with EF using adjusted hazard ratio (HR). Stroke, anemia, gout and cancer had a similar impact on mortality in both phenotypes, whereas diabetes (HR 1.57, 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.50–1.65] vs. HR 1.39 95% CI [1.27–1.51], p = 0.0002), renal failure (HR 1.65, 95% CI [1.57–1.73] vs. HR 1.44, 95% CI [1.32–1.57], p = 0.003) and liver disease (HR 2.13, 95% CI [1.83–2.47] vs. HR 1.42, 95% CI [1.09–1.85] p = 0.02) had a higher impact in the HFrEF patients. Moreover, pulmonary disease (HR 1.46, 95% CI [1.40–1.53] vs. HR 1.66 95% CI [1.54–1.80], p = 0.007) was more prominent in the HFpEF patients. Sleep apnea was not associated with worse prognosis in either group. No significant variation was found in the impact over the 12-year study period.

Non-cardiac comorbidities contribute significantly but differently to mortality, both in HFrEF and HFpEF. No significant variation was found in the impact over the 12-year study period. These results emphasize the importance of including the management of comorbidities as a part of a standardized heart failure care in both HF phenotypes.