Long-Term Prognosis in Heart Failure Worse With Diabetes

HealthDay News — Among patients with acute heart failure (HF), long-term prognosis is worse in those who have diabetes than in those who do not, though prognosis has improved in both groups, according to a study published in Diabetes Care.

Jan C. van den Berge, MD, from Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, and colleagues used data from a prospective registry of consecutive adults admitted to an intensive coronary care unit with acute HF from 1985 through 2008. Overall, 1810 patients were included, 384 of whom had diabetes.

The researchers found that the 10-year outcome in patients with diabetes was significantly worse than in those without diabetes (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 1.17).

The 10-year event rate for patients admitted in the last decade was significantly lower than for patients admitted in the first 2 decades. This was true for both patients without diabetes (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.86; 95% confidence interval, 0.75 to 0.99) and patients with diabetes (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.8; 95% confidence interval, 0.63 to 1).

“Despite these promising results, more awareness for diabetes in patients with acute HF is necessary and there is still need for optimal treatment of diabetes in acute HF,” conclude the authors.

Reference

van den Berge JC, Constantinescu AA, Boiten HJ, et al. Short-and long-term prognosis of patients with acute heart failure with and without diabetes: changes over the last three decades [published online October 5, 2017]. Diabetes Care. doi: 10.2337/dc17-0544.