Abstract 8976: Prognostic Value of Electrocardiographic Cornell product in Chronic Heart Failure Patients

Abstract

Background ; Heart failure is the major and increasing health problem with a high mortality. Although electrocardiogram (ECG) is a valuable non-invasive procedures used routinely for the diagnosis of heart failure, few ECG parameters, which are related to cardiac prognosis in chronic heart failure (CHF), are known. Cornell product is one of the parameters for ECG left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). However, clinical significance of Cornell product has not been studied in CHF patients. The purpose of present study is to examine whether Cornell product is related to cardiac function and can predict clinical outcomes in CHF patients. Methods and Results ; We examined a standard 12-lead ECG in 356 consecutive CHF patients and calculated Cornell product {(S v3 + R aVL + 0.6 in woman) × QRS duration}. Patients were prospectively followed during a median follow up period of 697 days, with the end points of cardiac death and cardiac events. There were 99 cardiac events, including 30 cardiac deaths and 69 re-admissions for worsening heart failure. In a simple linear regression analysis, Cornell product correlated with ejection fraction (EF) (r = 0.431, p < 0.0001). Cornell product was higher in patients with cardiac events than those without. In the univariate Cox proportional hazard analysis, age, NYHA functional class, brain natriuretic peptide, EF, and Cornell product were significant risk factor for cardiac events. A multivariate Cox proportional hazard analysis revealed that Cornell product was independent predictor of cardiac events in CHF patients. Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that cardiac event rate was higher in patients with high Cornell product than patients with low Cornell product. Conclusion ; Cornell product is a promising parameters to detect not only LVH but also cardiac systolic dysfunction in CHF patients. Cornell product can be a highly reliable non-invasive parameter for predicting cardiac prognosis in CHF patients.