Darryl Leong
Physical frailty is a characteristic that should be evaluated to assess the risk of poor outcomes in patients with heart failure, a study from a global heart failure registry has found.
The findings were presented today at the ESC Congress in Amsterdam by PHRI Scientist Darryl Leong, with simultaneous publication in the European Heart Journal.
The study is an analysis of 3429 patients with heart failure (HF) from 27 high-, middle- and low-income countries within the G-CHF registry.
Fragility incorporated handgrip strength, gait speed, physical activity, unintended weight loss, and self-reported exhaustion.
“Although most heart failure occurs in countries outside North America and Europe, there has historically been few data on the effects of frailty on heart failure outcomes from these regions,” says Leong, first author. He is a G-CHF investigator along with senior author PHRI Scientist Salim Yusuf, PHRI Scientist Philip Joseph, and global collaborators.
The study found that frailty confers substantial incremental prognostic information to prognostic variables for predicting death and HF hospitalization. The relationship between frailty and these outcomes is consistent across countries at all income levels.
“Addressing frailty might represent a new strategy, distinct from established effective treatments, to improve outcomes in individuals with heart failure,” says Leong.
