Abstract 11242: Impact of Peripheral Artery Disease on Prognosis in Heart Failure Patients

Abstract

Background: A history of peripheral artery disease (PAD) is an independent predictor of cardiac mortality in patients with ischemic heart disease. However, it still remains unclear whether PAD predicts worsening heart failure (HF), cardiac and all-cause mortality in HF patients. Methods and Results: Consecutive 388 HF patients admitted to our hospital for the treatment of decompensated HF were divided into 2 groups based on the presence of PAD: HF with PAD (PAD group, n = 103) and HF without PAD (non-PAD group, n = 285). We compared echocardiographic and laboratory findings, and followed the event of worsening HF, cardiac death, non-cardiac death, and all-cause mortality between the two groups. The PAD group, as compared to non-PAD group, had 1) higher age (69.2 vs. 64.5 years old, P=0.001), 2) higher incidence of New York Heart Association functional class III or IV (56.3% vs. 37.2%, P = 0.001), 3) lower levels of hemoglobin (12.3 vs. 12.9 g/dl, P = 0.020), 4) higher levels of B-type natriuretic peptide (591.0 vs. 256.9 pg/ml, P = 0.017), 5) lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) (46.2 vs. 58.9 ml/min/1.73m 2 , P < 0.001), and 6) lower left ventricular ejection fraction (42.0 vs. 48.7%, P < 0.001). In the follow-up period (mean 765.6 days), Kaplan-Meier analyses (Figure) showed that the event-free survival from worsening HF, cardiac death, non-cardiac death and all-cause death was significantly higher in non-PAD group than in PAD group (P = 0.017, P < 0.001, P = 0.001 and P = 0.005, respectively, by a log-rank test). In the Cox proportional hazard analyses after adjusting for age, gender, ejection fraction, estimated GFR, and the presence of ischemic heart disease, PAD was an independent predictor of cardiac death (hazard ratio (HR) 2.09, P = 0.019) and all-cause mortality (HR 2.16, P = 0.002) in HF patients. Conclusions: PAD is an independent predictor of cardiac mortality and all-cause mortality in HF patients.