Lower admission blood pressure as an independent predictor of 1-year mortality in elderly patients experiencing a first hospitalization for acute heart failure

Abstract

Background: Systolic blood pressure (SBP) is an acknowledged prognostic factor in patients with heart failure (HF). Admission SBP should be a risk factor for 1-year mortality even in elderly patients experiencing a first admission for HF, and this risk may persist in the oldest subset of patients.

Design: Methods: We reviewed the medical records of 1031 patients aged 70 years or older admitted within a 3-year period for a first episode of acute heart failure (AHF). The cohort was divided according to admission SBP values in quartiles. We analyzed all-cause mortality as a function of these admission SBP quartiles.

Results: Mean age was 82.2 ± 6 years; their mean admission SBP was 138.6 ± 25 mmHg. A statistically significant association was present between mortality at 30 (p < 0.0001), 90 (p < 0.0001), and 365 days (p < 0.0001) after hospital discharge and lower admission SBP quartiles. One-year mortality ranged from 14.7% for patients within the upper SBP quartile to 41.4% for those in the lowest quartile. The multivariate analysis confirmed this association (HR: 0.884; 95% CI: 0.615-0.76; p = 0.0001), which remained significant when admission SBP was evaluated as a continuous variable (HR: 0.980; 95% CI: 0.975-0.985; p = 0.0001). The association between SBP and 1-year mortality remained when the sample was divided into old (70-82 years) and "oldest-old" (>82 years) patients.

Conclusions: Lower SBP at admission is an independent predictor of midterm postdischarge mortality for elderly patients experiencing a first admission for AHF.

Keywords: Heart failure; Hospitalization; Mortality; Systolic blood pressure.