Impact of heart failure and left ventricular function on long-term survival--report of a community-based cohort study in Taiwan

BACKGROUND: There is little community-based information on heart failure (HF) prognosis in ethnic Chinese populations, in whom there is a low prevalence of coronary heart disease. AIMS: To study the impact of HF and left ventricular function on long-term all-cause mortality. METHODS AND RESULTS: This community-based prospective cohort study included 2660 subjects (1215 men, 1445 women, mean age 54.4+/-11.9 years) over a 10 year follow-up period. The prevalence of HF was 5.5%. Hypertension was the most common factor related to HF. The five and ten year all-cause mortality was higher in the HF/preserved LVEF group (14.1% and 24.4%) and the HF/impaired LVEF group (29.2% and 48.2%) than in the HF-free group (6.0% and 14.6%, p<0.0001 for both). In multivariable Cox analyses, controlling for sex, LV mass, atrial fibrillation, hypertension, coronary heart disease, HF/preserved LVEF and HF/impaired LVEF were important predictors of all-cause mortality (p=0.007). CONCLUSIONS: Hypertension is a major heart failure related disease. HF and LV systolic dysfunction are associated with a significant increase in all-cause mortality in an ethnic Chinese population.