Heart failure patient profile in cardiology department: a single-centre data

Background. Chronic heart failure is a complex clinical syndrome characterised by structural or functional heart disease. Heart failure is a rapidly growing public health issue, affecting approximately 64 million people worldwide. Aim. The aim of this study was to identify patient profile in a secondary care cardiology centre. Methods. The data of 1203 heart failure patients hospitalised in the Department of Cardiology, Kaunas Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences in the period of 2022–2023 were involved into this retrospective study. Study data was collected from medical records (sociodemographic characteristics, clinical presentation of HF, biochemical and echocardiographic findings). Statistical data analysis was performed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 29.0 software. The normality of data was assessed with Shapiro– Wilk test. Mann–Whitney U and Chi-square tests were used. Continuous data were expressed as means (SD) and medians [lower-upper quartiles]. Data differences were considered statistically significant at p < 0.05. Results. The study included 518 (43.1%) men and 685 (56.9%) women, with a mean age of 78 (11.2) years. Men were statistically significantly younger than women, 73.4 (12.1) vs 83.8 (8.4), p < 0.001. One (0.1 %) of HF patients were classified as NYHA class I, 29 (2.4 %) — as NYHA class II, 1033 (85.9 %) — as NYHA class III, and 93 (7.7 %) — as NYHA class IV. Most of the patients had non-ischemic etiology of HF if compare to ischemic etiology, 825 (68.7 %) vs 377 (31.3 %). 96.3% of the patients had arterial hypertension, 66% — permanent atrial fibrillation, 38% — chronic kidney disease, 26.8% — diabetes mellitus, 12% — pulmonary disease (asthma, previous embolism, COPD). 84.5% of the patients had elevated plasma levels of NT-proBNP (>125 ng/l) with average of 7441 ng/l and 43.1% had reduced left ventricular ejection fraction 40%. 73 (6.1%) of the patients died in the hospital, while 1030 (86.2%) were discharge home or to palliative care hospital and 92 (7.7%) transferred to tertiary care cardiology hospital. Conclusion. Based on the study results, the main etiology of HF is non-ischemic with predominantly younger age of men with quite wide range of comorbidities, worse NYHA class and bad outcomes.