The prevalence of anemia in chronic heart failure
Section snippets
Patients and methods
The medical records of all male and female caucasian patients, who were treated at the outpatient heart failure clinic of the University Hospital in Bern were reviewed to determine the prevalence and severity of anemia in these patients. Referral of patients to our clinic was by general practitioners, cardiologists, local hospitals or other units of our hospital. Patients were usually pre-treated with ACE-inhibitors, diuretics and anticoagulants. Our retrospective analysis followed the
Patients
One hundred and ninety-three patients (160 males, 33 females) were seen between May 1994 and December 2000. Mean age was 54±11 years. Baseline characteristics are summarised in relation to NYHA class in Table 1, Table 2.
Fourteen patients were in NYHA-class I (7%), 69 class II (36%), 79 class III (41%) and 31 class IV (16%). Patients with severe CHF (NYHA-class III and IV) were 3 years older (55±11 years) than patient with mild heart failure (NYHA-class I and II) (52±11 years, P<0.05). Etiology
Discussion
The main finding of the present study is that anemia in patients with CHF is relatively common and correlates with the severity of the disease. Anemia (hemoglobin <120 g/l) was present in 28 of 193 patients (15%). Hemoglobin levels were similar in all four NYHA-classes but there were significantly more patients with anemia in NYHA-class III and IV (19%) compared with class I and II (8%, P<0.05). Furthermore, there was no relationship between anemia and the clinical events, i.e., death or
Conclusions
Anemia in CHF patients is common and correlates with the severity of the disease. However, it seems to be more correlated with etiology and comorbidities than with the syndrome of heart failure. Treatment strategies aiming at a correction of anemia may be promising for fully treated patients with no other options.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Katharina Huber-Steiner Foundation.
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