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Death Risk Higher if Anaemia Accompanies Heart Failure: Presented at HFSA

By Roberta Friedman, PhD

LAS VEGAS, NV -- September 29, 2003 -- Anaemia appears to play a role in the risk of dying during a hospitalisation for heart failure, according to the analysis of a registry presented September 22^nd at the Annual Meeting of the Heart Failure Society of America.

Presenter John J. Kim, PharmD, Amgen, Thousand Oaks, California, United States, said that "in this cohort, there is higher mortality than we see with low haemoglobin." Dr. Kim added that Amgen is investigating whether treatment with its extended half-life erythropoietin might improve outcome for heart failure patients.

A 1.0g/dL increase in haemoglobin gave a 10.2% reduction in mortality risk (P<0.001).

The registry, maintained by Cerner Corp., Kansas City, Missouri, United States, comprises data sent from 21 hospitals in the United States for patients hospitalised for the year starting in October 2000.

Investigators looked at 9,107 patients, 57.6% of whom were male, and 74% older than 70 years of age. Of these patients, 40.2% had haemoglobin of less than 12.0 g/dL; this was the definition that the investigators set for anaemia.

Death rates while in hospital were 6.1% for those patients with heart failure who were not anaemic, compared to 10.1% for the lowest, who had less than 10 g/dL (P<0.001).

In a second poster presentation, the investigators showed that anaemia also factors into the length of a hospital stay for heart failure, as well as the cost. By multivariate modeling, the researchers demonstrated that a 1.0g/dL increase in haemoglobin yielded a 5.1% reduction in the time spent in hospital, and a 5.3% decrease in costs accrued during the stay (P<0.001 for each).

Amgen sponsored these studies.


[Study title: Impact of anemia on in-hospital mortality in patients with heart failure. 293. Impact of anemia on length of stay and charges in hospitalized patients with heart failure. Abstract 287]

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