Trends in Readmissions Rates and Mortality after Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy in Patients with Nonischemic Cardiomyopathy.

Introduction: Advances in cardiac implanted electronic devices (CIED) have significantly improved outcomes for patients with heart failure. However, there is a bereft of recent real- world data on the relative effectiveness of cardiac resynchronization therapy with pacing and defibrillator (CRT-D) and continuous resynchronization therapy with pacing (CRT-P) in patients with nonischemic cardiomyopathy (NICM). We hypothesized that the addition of defibrillation therapy in patients with NICM would offer no significant benefit.

Methods: We searched the National Readmissions Database (NRD) from 2016-2020 to identify hospitalizations with NICM using appropriate ICD-10 diagnosis and procedure codes. The cohort was further divided into groups with NICM and CRT-D implantation and NICM with CRTP implantation.

Results: Our final cohort included 8,801 hospitalizations with NICM and CRT-D implantation and 3,399 hospitalizations with NICM and CRT-P implantation. Propensity matching was performed using comorbidities through multivariate logistic regression. Two thousand nine hundred seventeen hospitalizations were included in each of the two groups, CRT-D and CRT-P. Analysis of the propensity-matched cohorts at 180 days revealed a trend toward lower heart failure readmission, all-cause readmission, and all-cause mortality rates in the group with CRTP implantation. However, there was no difference noted in the 180-day hazard ratios of HF readmission [1.08 (0.98-1.19); p = 0.1], all-cause readmission [1.04 (0.87-1.12); p = 0.23], and all-cause mortality [0.83 (0.58-1.19); p = 0.32].

Conclusion: It was found that NICM patients with CRT-D have a trend towards higher HF readmissions, all-cause readmission, and all-cause mortality compared to those with CRT-P, but no significant difference was noted in hazard ratios. The findings of our study raise further questions about the need for defibrillator therapy in patients with NICM and merit further studies to better select candidates for each of these therapies.