Cardiac Index by Transthoracic Echocardiography (CITE) study

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Echocardiography
• Heart Failure Research

Background:

• Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is the standard metric for heart failure (HF) assessment.
• Cardiac index (CI) is emerging as a potential alternative, but requires further validation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the predictive accuracy of LVEF and echocardiographically-derived CI in hospitalized HF patients.
• To evaluate their roles in predicting mortality and HF readmission.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective cohort study of 334 acute HF patients (2010-2016).
• Cox proportional hazard models used to assess LVEF and CI for predicting all-cause death, CV death, and HF readmission.

Main Results:

• CI predicted HF readmission in the overall cohort, while LVEF did not correlate with any endpoint.
• LVEF predicted CV mortality in HF with reduced LVEF (HFrEF) patients.
• CI predicted HF readmission in non-HFrEF patients.

Conclusions:

• CI may serve as a valuable alternative to LVEF for assessing cardiac function, particularly in HF patients with midrange or preserved LVEF.
• Both LVEF and CI models demonstrated comparable predictive accuracy for mortality and HF readmission.
• CI shows promise as a new tool for managing HF patients.