Feitell, Scott

Introduction: Patients with acute heart failure (AHF) exacerbation are susceptible to complications in the setting of COVID-19 infection. Data regarding the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 in patients admitted with AHF is limited. Methods: We used the national inpatient sample database by utilizing ICD-10 codes to identify all hospitalizations with a diagnosis of AHF in 2020. We classified the sample into AHF with COVID-19 infection versus those without COVID-19. Primary outcome was in-hospital mortality. Secondary outcomes were acute myocardial infarction, need for pressors, mechanical cardiac support, cardiogenic shock, and cardiac arrest. Also, we evaluated for acute pulmonary embolism (PE), bacterial pneumonia, need for a ventilator, and acute kidney injury (AKI). Results: We identified a total of 694,920 of AHF hospitalizations, 660,463 (95.04%) patients without COVID-19 and 34,457 (4.96%) with COVID-19 infection. For baseline comorbidities, diabetes mellitus, chronic heart failure, ESRD, and coagulopathy were significantly higher among AHF patients with COVID-19 ( P < .01). While CAD, prior MI, percutaneous coronary intervention, and coronary artery bypass graft, atrial fibrillation, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and peripheral vascular disease were higher among those without COVID-19. After adjustment for baseline comorbidities, in-hospital mortality (aOR 5.08 [4.81 to 5.36]), septic shock (aOR 2.54 [2.40 to 2.70]), PE (aOR 1.75 [1.57 to 1.94]), and AKI (aOR 1.33 [1.30 to 1.37]) were significantly higher among AHF with COVID-19 patients. The mean length of stay (5 vs 7 days, P < .01) and costs of hospitalization ($42,143 vs $60,251, P < .01) were higher among AHF patients with COVID-19 infection. Conclusion: COVID-19 infection in patients with AHF is associated with significantly higher in-hospital mortality, need for mechanical ventilation, septic shock, and AKI along with higher resource utilization. Predictors for mortality in AHF patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19 infection, patients with end-stage heart failure, and atrial fibrillation. Studies on the impact of vaccination against COVID-19 in AHF patients are needed

Abstract Introduction Sarcoidosis is a multisystem disorder characterized by an autoimmune response to an unidentified antigen in genetically susceptible persons. Despite clinically detectable cardiac manifestations of sarcoidosis occurring in approximately 5% of patients, recent studies have revealed cardiac involvement to be at 25% in patients with the disease, highlighting the fact that cardiac involvement in sarcoidosis is much more common than was once thought to be. Purpose With cardiac involvement in sarcoidosis being increasingly recognized due to the availability of advanced cardiac imaging, large scale data regarding in-hospital mortality and clinical outcomes of patients admitted with cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) is lacking. Our study aimed to fill this knowledge gap by analyzing demographics and in-hospital outcomes of a large cohort of patients admitted with CS across the United States (US). Methods We analyzed data from the national inpatient sample (NIS) database between October 2015 to December 2018 to identify patients who had been admitted with primary and secondary diagnoses of CS. The NIS is an administrative database sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality consisting of data from 46 participating states, representing more than 95% of the US population and providing nationwide estimates of over 35 million hospitalizations annually. The NIS uses de-identified hospital discharges as samples and hence no additional ethical committee approval was required. International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) code D86.85 was used to identify hospitalizations with CS in patients aged 18 years or older. SAS 9.4 (SAS Institute, Inc, Cary, NC) was used for statistical analyses. Results A total of 4275 patients were included in the analysis. A higher proportion of patients with CS were females (62.43% vs. 37.57%). Hypertension was the most common comorbidity (43.99%), followed by hyperlipidemia (39.21%) and chronic kidney disease (26.95%). All-cause in-hospital mortality was 2.57%. Atrial fibrillation (AF) was the most common arrhythmia (28.12%), followed by ventricular tachycardia (VT) (22.52%). About 16% of CS patients underwent implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) implantation during hospital stay. About 42% of patients had concurrent heart failure, out of whom 33.84% had heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). Mean length of hospital stay was 5 days (3–8 days), and the mean cost of hospitalization was $14,177 ($7,121–35,993). Conclusion Given the low prevalence of CS, most of the available studies have been retrospective in nature, based on small sample sizes. Despite being retrospective and cross-sectional, our study has the advantage of being based on a nationally representative sample population, providing key formation on the demographics and in-hospital outcomes of patients with CS. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: None.

Introduction: Real-world data on the significance of adding a defibrillator to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT-D) in patients with nonischemic cardiomyopathy (NICM) are limited. Hypothesis: CRT-D is associated with a lower risk of mortality and heart failure (HF) readmissions compared to CRT-P in NICM. Methods: We identified patients with NICM who underwent CRT-D and CRT without an ICD (CRT-P) by analyzing the nationwide readmission database from October 2015- December 2018 and using appropriate ICD-10 CM codes. Propensity score matching was performed to adjust for the confounders. Kaplan Meier curves were utilized for time to event analysis. Cox proportional hazard regression was used to generate hazard ratios. All-cause mortality at 6 months was the primary outcome whereas readmission due to HF and any other cause at 6 months were defined as secondary outcomes. Results: Post-PSM, 3054 patients with NICM underwent CRT-P, and 2863 patients underwent CRT-D placement. CRT-D did not show any benefit over CRT-P in reducing all-cause mortality at 6 months (2.92% vs. 2.79%, HR: 0.84, 95% CI: 0.61-1.16, p=0.29). Similarly, there was no difference in terms of readmissions due to other causes among both groups of patients (36.25% vs. 31.85%, HR: 0.98, 95% CI: 0.89-1.08, p=0.77). However, patients with CRT-P implantations had a lower risk of HF readmissions compared to the CRT-D group (10.05% vs. 14.25%, HR: 0.67, 95% CI: 0.58-0.79, p<0.0001). Conclusions: The addition of a defibrillator to CRT failed to show a survival benefit in patients with NICM. Moreover, HF readmissions were higher in CRT-D patients compared to CRT-P.