Heart failure progression due to secondary organ dysfunction in acute heart failure

Although the pathophysiology of heart failure progression is important to survival it is not fully understood. In 92 patients with acute heart failure due to myocardial infarction or dilated cardiomyopathy, secondary organ dysfunction was evaluated to determine whether this factor contributed to heart failure progression and death. Forty-one patients had renal dysfunction, hepatic disease or loss of consciousness after the onset of the acute heart failure, and 26 of them (63%) died of progressive heart failure during the follow-up period of 20 months on average. The one-year survival rate was 22%. Although 51 other patients showed the same initial clinical features and cardiac function, they did not develop concurrent organ dysfunction during the course and only 11 (22%, p < 0.001) died of progressive heart failure. The one-year survival rate was 67%. The survival rate decreased in the order of renal dysfunction, hepatic disease and loss of consciousness. Transient low cardiac output of less than 2.2 l/min/m2 was more frequent in patients with organ dysfunction. It is suggested that heart failure progresses, in part, due to organ dysfunction secondary to heart failure and careful treatment to prevent organ dysfunction is important to long term survival.