Differences in clinical features of patients with heart failure and reduced, mildly reduced, and preserved ejection fraction in a contemporary cohort: is the clinical profile changing?

Abstract Introduction Heart failure is a serious health problem and continues to have a high mortality and incidence of decompensations, despite advances in its management. The type of HF, defined by the LVEF value, has a great influence on treatment, since not all drugs and procedures have been shown to improve prognosis in the different subtypes of HF (reduced-HFrEF, mildly reduced-HFmrEF, and preserved-HFpEF). In addition, there are differences in clinical characteristics and comorbidities that may also influence these aspects, although the demographic and social changes that have occurred in recent years may have changed this perspective. Purpose To analyze in a contemporary registry of HF patients followed in specialized HF units in Spain the differences in clinical and demographic characteristics and comorbidities among the three subtypes of HF. Methods We analyzed data from the registry of the SEC-Excelente-IC quality accreditation program of the Spanish Society of Cardiology, with 1716 patients with HF included between 2019 and 2021 by 45 specialized HF units accredited by the SEC. Patients were included consecutively in two 1-month cutoffs (March and October) in that period. The clinical and demographic characteristics and comorbidities of the patients were compared according to the type of HF. Results Of the 1716 patients, 55.5% were HFrEF, 11.9% HFmrEF and 32.6% HFpEF. Figure 1 shows the main demographic and cardiovascular characteristics of the three subgroups. The median LVEFs were 30% (23-35), 45% (42-48) and 58% (53-65), respectively. Figure 2 shows the prevalence of major comorbidities. Patients with HFpEF were older and female in higher proportion, and presented a significantly higher prevalence of atrial fibrillation, valvular heart disease, obesity, hypertension, and anemia. Patients with HFrEF had a higher prevalence of coronary artery disease, smoking, admissions for HF in the previous year, and left bundle branch block. There were no differences between the three groups in the remaining comorbidities, including chronic kidney disease and chronic respiratory diseases. The characteristics of HFmrEF were intermediate between HFrEF and HFpEF (figures 1 and 2). Conclusions In our contemporary cohort of real-life HF patients, slight differences were observed between the 3 types of HF, particularly in relation to age, proportion of women, and prevalence of cardiac diseases. However, the prevalence of most of the major comorbidities did not show significant differences between the 3 groups, suggesting that a shift toward greater similarity in clinical characteristics between the 3 types of HF may be occurring.