Prognostic models for heart failure in patients with type 2 diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis

To provide a systematic review, critical appraisal, assessment of performance and generalisability of all the reported prognostic models for heart failure (HF) in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D).

We performed a literature search in Medline, Embase, Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Scopus (from inception to July 2022) and grey literature to identify any study developing and/or validating models predicting HF applicable to patients with T2D. We extracted data on study characteristics, modelling methods and measures of performance, and we performed a random-effects meta-analysis to pool discrimination in models with multiple validation studies. We also performed a descriptive synthesis of calibration and we assessed the risk of bias and certainty of evidence (high, moderate, low).

Fifty-five studies reporting on 58 models were identified: (1) models developed in patients with T2D for HF prediction (n=43), (2) models predicting HF developed in non-diabetic cohorts and externally validated in patients with T2D (n=3), and (3) models originally predicting a different outcome and externally validated for HF (n=12). RECODe (C-statistic=0.75 95% CI (0.72, 0.78), 95% prediction interval (PI) (0.68, 0.81); high certainty), TRS-HFDM (C-statistic=0.75 95% CI (0.69, 0.81), 95% PI (0.58, 0.87); low certainty) and WATCH-DM (C-statistic=0.70 95% CI (0.67, 0.73), 95% PI (0.63, 0.76); moderate certainty) showed the best performance. QDiabetes-HF demonstrated also good discrimination but was externally validated only once and not meta-analysed.

Among the prognostic models identified, four models showed promising performance and, thus, could be implemented in current clinical practice.