Abstract:
Objective To investigate the incidence of frailty in elderly patients with heart failure(HF) and the impact of frailty on their acute exacerbation readmission and all-cause mortality.
Methods Elderly patients with HF, aged 60-80 years, who were hospitalized in the First Affiliated Hospital of the University of Science and Technology of China from September 2023 to July 2024 were retrospectively included. According to the frailty screening scale (FS) score, all patients were divided into the non-frailty and frailty groups. Standardized follow-up was conducted for 1 year after discharge. The occurrence of adverse events was recorded. Composite endpoint events included readmission for acute exacerbation of HF and all-cause mortality.
Results A total of 228 patients were included, with an average age of (71.1±5.7) years. 69 (30.3%) patients were diagnosed with frailty. In the frailty group, NYHA grade was higher, the dose was higher and the incidence of cerebral infarction was higher, the lymphocyte percentage and blood sodium level were lower, while the levels of uric acid, serum creatinine, and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) were elevated. The results of 1-year follow-up showed that 89 cases (39.0%) had composite endpoint events, 15 cases (6.6%) of all-cause mortality, and 1 case (0.4%) lost to follow-up, and the incidence of composite endpoint events in the frailty group (65.2% vs. 27.7%, P < 0.001), readmission rate due to HF (50.7% vs. 24.5%, P < 0.001) and all-cause mortality (14.5% vs. 3.1%, P = 0.001) were higher than those in the non-frailty group. Kaplan-Meier survival curve analysis showed that the cumulative event rate was higher in the frailty group (P < 0.0001). Multivariate Cox’s regression analysis confirmed that frailty was an independent risk factor for composite endpoint events (HR = 4.867, 95%CI 2.420-9.789, P < 0.001) and readmission due to HF (HR = 2.530, 95%CI 1.348-4.747, P = 0.004).
Conclusions The incidence of frailty is high in elderly patients with HF. Frailty is an independent predictor of poor prognosis, which is an important factor for clinicians to consider in clinical evaluation and treatment decision-making.