Background: Left ventricular dysfunction is characterized by systolic and diastolic parameters, leading to heart failure (HF) with reduced or preserved ejection fraction (EF), respectively. The goal of this study is to examine the impact of left ventricular systolic and diastolic dysfunction (DD) on patient outcomes.
Methods and results: Two cohorts were used in this analysis: Cohort A included 136 455 patients with EF ≥50%, stratified by the presence and grade of DD. Cohort B included 16 850 patients with EF <50%, stratified by EF quartiles. Patients were followed to the end points of all-cause death and cardiovascular, HF, or cardiac arrest hospitalizations. Over a median follow-up of 3.42 years, 23 946 (16%) patients died and 31 113 (20%), 13 305 (9%), and 1269 (1%) were hospitalized for cardiovascular, HF, or cardiac arrest causes, respectively. With adjustment for comorbidities, the risk of all-cause mortality and of cardiovascular and HF hospitalizations increased steadily with increasing grade of DD in patients with normal EF, and even more so in patients with worsening EF. The risk of hospitalization for cardiac arrest in patients with grade III DD, however, was comparable to that of patients with EF <25% (hazard ratio, 1.00 [95% CI, 0.98-1.01]) and worse than that of patients in better EF quartiles.
Conclusions: Although systolic dysfunction is associated with a greater risk of overall death and HF hospitalizations than DD, the risk of cardiac arrest in patients with grade II and III DD is comparable to that of patients with moderate and severe systolic dysfunction, respectively. Future studies are needed to examine treatment strategies than can improve these outcomes.
Keywords: death; diastolic dysfunction; ejection fraction; hospitalization; myocardial function.