Even a Low Comorbidity Burden Predicts Poor Outcomes in Chronic Heart Failure.

Background: Patients with heart failure often have multiple cardiovascular risk factors (CVRFs) and comorbidities (CMBs). We evaluated the impact of additive CMB and CVRF on heart failure prognosis.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed ambulatory patients with systolic dysfunction between January 2012 and May 2018. Follow-up was until January 2021. The endpoint was all-cause death. CVRF analyzed arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and smoking. CMB evaluated coronary artery disease, noncoronary atherosclerotic disease, respiratory disease, dementia, anemia, chronic kidney disease, inflammatory/autoimmune disease, active cancer, and atrial fibrillation. Classification according to the number of CVRFs and/or CMBs is <2 and ≥2. The independent prognostic impact of CVRF/CMB burden was assessed with multivariate Cox regression.

Results: Most patients had ≥2 CMBs (67.9%). Regarding CVRF, 14.9% presented none, 40.2% had 1, and 32.1% had 2. During a median 49-month follow-up, 419 (49.1%) patients died. Mortality was higher among patients with ≥2 CVRFs (56.1 versus 43.4% in those with <2) and in those with ≥2 CMBs (57.7 versus 31.0%). While patients with 1 CMB had similar mortality than those with none. Patients with ≥2 CMBs had higher long-term mortality risk: hazard ratio (HR), 2.47 (95% CI, 1.95-3.14). In patients with ≥2CVRFs, the HR of dying is 1.39 (95% CI, 1.14-1.70). When taken together, there was a clear survival disadvantage for patients with ≥2 CVRFs/CMBs-adjusted HR, 2.20 (95% CI, 1.45-3.34).

Conclusions: The presence of only 2 CVRFs/CMBs more than doubles the patients´ risk of dying. CVRF and CMB should be assessed as part of routine patient management.