Hypochloraemia following admission to hospital with heart failure is common and associated with an increased risk of readmission or death: a report from OPERA-HF.

AIMS: Hypochloraemia is common in patients hospitalized with heart failure (HF) and associated with a high risk of adverse outcomes during admission and following discharge. We assessed the significance of changes in serum chloride concentrations in relation to serum sodium and bicarbonate concentrations during admission in a cohort of 1002 consecutive patients admitted with HF and enrolled into an observational study based at a single tertiary centre in the UK. METHODS AND RESULTS: Hypochloraemia (<96 mmol/L), hyponatraemia (<135 mmol/L), and metabolic alkalosis (bicarbonate >32 mmol/L) were defined by local laboratory reference ranges. Outcomes assessed were all-cause mortality, all-cause mortality or all-cause readmission, and all-cause mortality or HF readmission. Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier curves were used to investigate associations with outcome. During a median follow-up of 856 days (interquartile range 272-1416), discharge hypochloraemia, regardless of serum sodium, or bicarbonate levels was associated with greater all-cause mortality [hazard ratio (HR) 1.44, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.15-1.79; P = 0.001], all-cause mortality or all-cause readmission (HR 1.26, 95% CI 1.04-1.53; P = 0.02), and all-cause mortality or HF readmission (HR 1.41, 95% CI 1.14-1.74; P = 0.002) after multivariable adjustment. Patients with concurrent hypochloraemia and natraemia had lower haemoglobin and haematocrit, suggesting congestion; those with hypochloraemia and normal sodium levels had more metabolic alkalosis, suggesting decongestion. CONCLUSION: Hypochloraemia is common at discharge after a hospitalization for HF and is associated with worse outcome subsequently. It is an easily measured clinical variables that is associated with morbidity or mortality of any cause.

Added value of frailty and social support in predicting risk of 30-day unplanned re-admission or death for patients with heart failure: An analysis from OPERA-HF.

BACKGROUND: Models for predicting the outcome of patients hospitalized for heart failure (HF) rarely take a holistic view. We assessed the ability of measures of frailty and social support in addition to demographic, clinical, imaging and laboratory variables to predict short-term outcome for patients discharged after a hospitalization for HF. METHODS: OPERA-HF is a prospective observational cohort, enrolling patients hospitalized for HF in a single center in Hull, UK. Variables were combined in a logistic regression model after multiple imputation of missing data to predict the composite outcome of death or readmission at 30 days. Comparisons were made to a model using clinical variables alone. The discriminative performance of each model was internally validated with bootstrap re-sampling. RESULTS: 1094 patients were included (mean age 77 [interquartile range 68-83] years; 40% women; 56% with moderate to severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction) of whom 213 (19%) had an unplanned re-admission and 60 (5%) died within 30 days. For the composite outcome, a model containing clinical variables alone had an area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.68 [95% CI 0.64-0.72]. Adding marital status, support from family and measures of physical frailty increased the AUC (p < 0.05) to 0.70 [95% CI 0.66-0.74]. CONCLUSIONS: Measures of physical frailty and social support improve prediction of 30-day outcome after an admission for HF but predicting near-term events remains imperfect. Further external validation and improvement of the model is required.

Depression as an independent prognostic factor for all-cause mortality after a hospital admission for worsening heart failure.

BACKGROUND: Depression is associated with increased mortality amongst patients with chronic heart failure (HF). Whether depression is an independent predictor of outcome in patients admitted for worsening of HF is unclear. METHODS: OPERA-HF is an observational study enrolling patients hospitalized with worsening HF. Depression was assessed by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS-D) questionnaire. Comorbidity was assessed by the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI). Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses were used to estimate the association between depression and all-cause mortality. RESULTS: Of 242 patients who completed the HADS-D questionnaire, 153, 54 and 35 patients had no (score 0-7), mild (score 8-10) or moderate-to-severe (score 11-21) depression, respectively. During follow-up, 35 patients died, with a median time follow-up of 360days amongst survivors (interquartile range, IQR 217-574days). In univariable analysis, moderate-to-severe depression was associated with an increased risk of death (HR: 4.9; 95% CI: 2.3 to 10.2; P<0.001) compared to no depression. Moderate-to-severe depression also predicted all-cause mortality after controlling for age, CCI score, NYHA class IV, NT-proBNP and treatment with mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist, beta-blocker and diuretics (HR: 3.0; 95% CI: 1.3 to 7.0; P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Depression is strongly associated with an adverse outcome in the year following discharge after an admission to hospital for worsening HF. The association is only partly explained by the severity of HF or comorbidity. Further research is required to demonstrate whether recognition and treatment of depression improves patient outcomes.