Cardiology Letters 2017, 26(5):269-275

Demographic and clinical characteristics in patients hospitalised with heart failure in Slovakia. SLOVASeZ II registry.

Gonçalvesová E¹, Danková M¹, Lesný P¹, Varga I², Luknár M¹, Šimovičová V¹, Kováčová M¹

¹ Oddelenia zlyhávania a transplantácie srdca, Národný ústav srdcových a cievnych chorôb a.s., Bratislava

² Cardio-Integra, Bratislava, Slovenská republika

Introduction: The data collection and subsequent analysis on patients with acute heart failure in the Slovak Republic is provided to the SLOVASeZ registry.

Objective: Analysis of characteristics in a non-selected population of patients hospitalised with acute heart failure (AHF).

Methodology: We conducted multicenter prospective survey with 592 consecutive patients enrolled in 14 hospitals throughout in Slovakia. Data (120 characteristics in 10 categories) were collected electronically during 3 months (between April 1, 2014 and June 30, 2014) and statistically analysed.

Results: Mean age was 73±11.5 years with gender distribution (men/women) 51/49%.The majority of patients were admitted with gradual worsening of known heart failure nor solving by outpatient management (49%). AHF de novo diagnosed was in 25%. Rapid worsening of known chronic HF was reason for hospitalization in 26% of cases. Coronary heart disease was the predominant etiology of AHF (47.1%) followed by arterial hypertension (16.7%), valvular disease (14.4%) and dilated cardiomyopathy (10.8%). Arterial hypertension was reffered as the most frequent comorbidity (90%), followed by atrial fibrillation (56.6%), dyslipidemia (56.3%), diabetes mellitus (46.8%) and chronic kidney disease (40.7%) on admission. Systolic blood pressure values below 110 mmHg were in 17.4% of patients. Echocardiography was available in 74% of the patients with proportion of reduced/mid-range and preserved left ventricular ejection fraction 40/20/40%. Systolic blood pressure greater than 140 mmHg was present in 40% of the patients Moderate to severe systolic LV dysfunction was observed in 40% of patients. The availability of natriuretic peptide testing was in 77.2% of patients. The mean length of stay was 9.4 days and in-hospital mortality was 9.1%.

Conclusions: The survey results are comparable with other observational heart failure studies and large registries. In recent years the availability of echocardiography and natriuretic peptides has improved. In-hospital mortality is high and does not change in comparison with similar study performed in 2007. Fig. 4, Tab. 2, Ref. 21, online full text (Free, PDF) www. cardiology.sk

Keywords: SLOVASeZ; heart failure; characteristics; registry

Published: May 1, 2017  Show citation