Sarcopenia and frailty are causes for morbidity and mortality amongst heart failure (HF) patients. Low alanine transaminase (ALT) is a marker for these syndromes and, therefore, could serve as a biomarker for the prognostication of HF patients. We performed a retrospective analysis of all consecutive hospitalized HF patients in our institute in order to find out whether low ALT values would be a biomarker for poor outcomes. Our cohort included 11,102 patients, 35.6% categorized as heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. We excluded patients with ALT > 40 IU/L and cirrhosis. 8700 patients were followed for a median duration of 22 months and included in a univariate analysis. Patients with ALT < 10 IU/L were older (mean age 78.6 vs. 81.8, p < 0.001), had past stroke (24.6% vs. 19.6%, p < 0.001), dementia (7.7% vs. 4.6%, p < 0.001), and malignancy (13.4% vs. 10.2%, p = 0.003). Hospitalization length was longer in the low-ALT group (4 vs. 3 days, p < 0.001), and the rate of acute kidney injury during hospitalization was higher (19.1% vs. 15.6%; p = 0.006). The in-hospital mortality rate was higher in the low-ALT group (6.5% vs. 3.9%; p < 0.001). Long-term mortality was also higher (73.3% vs. 61.5%; p < 0.001). In a multivariate regression analysis, ALT < 10 IU/L had a 1.22 hazard ratio for mortality throughout the follow-up period (CI = 1.09-1.36; p < 0.001). Low ALT plasma level, a biomarker for sarcopenia and frailty, can assist clinicians in prognostic stratification of heart failure patients.
Keywords: ALT; frailty; heart failure; prognosis; sarcopenia.