RESEARCH ARTICLE
Anaemia and Long Term Mortality in Heart Failure Patients: A Retrospective Study
Mette Charlot1, *, Christian Torp-Pedersen1, Nana Valeur1, Marie Seibæk2, Peter Weeke1, Lars Køber3
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 4
First Page: 173
Last Page: 177
Publisher ID: TOCMJ-4-173
DOI: 10.2174/1874192401004010173
Article History:
Received Date: 4/6/2010Revision Received Date: 14/6/2010
Acceptance Date: 19/6/2010
Electronic publication date: 9/8/2010
Collection year: 2010
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background:
Anaemia has been demonstrated as a risk factor in patients with heart failure over periods of a few years, but long term data are not available. We examined the long-term risk of anaemia in heart failure patients during 15 years of follow-up.
Methods:
We evaluated survival data for 1518 patients with heart failure randomized into the Danish Investigations of Arrhythmia and Mortality on Dofetilide (DIAMOND) trial. The follow-up time was from 13 to 15 years. After 15 years 11.5% of the patients were still alive.
Results:
Anaemia was present in 34% of the patients. 264 (17%) had mild, 152 (10%) had moderate and 98 (7%) had severe anaemia. Hazard ratio of death for patients with mild anaemia compared with patients with no anaemia was 1.27 (1.11-1.45, p<0.001), for moderate anaemia 1.48 (1.24-1.77, p<0.001) and for severe anaemia 1.82 (1.47-2.24, p<0.001), respectively. In multivariable analyses anaemia was still associated with increased mortality with hazard ratios of 1.19 (1.04–1.37, p=0.014) for mild anaemia, 1.23 (1.03–1.48, p=0.024) for moderate anaemia and 1.33 (1.07–1.66, p=0.010) for severe anaemia, respectively. In landmark analysis the increased mortality for mild anaemia was only significant during the first 2 years, while moderate anaemia remained significant for at least 5 years. There were too few patients left with severe anaemia after 5 years to evaluate the importance on mortality beyond this time.
Conclusion:
Anaemia at the time of diagnosis of heart failure is an independent factor for mortality during the following years but loses its influence on mortality over time.
