Association Between the Use of an Adaptive Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Algorithm and Health Care Use and Cost

To assess the association between the use of adaptive pacing on clinical and economic outcomes of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) recipients in a real-world analysis.

The adaptivCRT (aCRT) algorithm was shown in prior subgroup analyses of prospective trials to achieve clinical benefits, but a large prospective trial showed nonsignificant changes in the endpoint of mortality or hospitalizations due to heart failure.

CRT-implanted patients from the Optum Clinformatics database with ≥ 90 days of follow-up were included. Remote monitoring data were used to classify patients based on CRT setting-adaptive biventricular and left ventricular pacing (aCRT) vs standard biventricular pacing (Standard CRT). Inverse probability of treatment weighting was used to adjust for baseline differences between groups. Mortality, 30-day readmissions, health care use, and payer and patients' costs were evaluated post-implantation.

This study included 2412 aCRT and 1638 Standard CRT patients (mean follow-up: 2.4 ± 1.4 years), with balanced baseline characteristics after adjustment. The aCRT group was associated with lower all-cause mortality rates (adjusted hazard ratio = 0.88 [95% confidence interval (CI):0.80, 0.96]), fewer all-cause 30-day readmissions (adjusted incidence rate ratio = 0.87 [CI:0.81, 0.94]), and fewer all-cause and HF-related inpatient, outpatient and emergency department visits. The aCRT cohort was also associated with lower all-cause outpatient payer-paid amounts and lower all-cause and HF-related inpatient and emergency department patient-paid amounts.

In this retrospective analysis of a large real-world cohort, the use of an adaptive CRT algorithm was associated with lower mortality rates, reduced health care resource use and lower payer and patient costs.