The following is the summary of “Cachexia Is Associated With Adverse Outcomes in Patients Admitted With Heart Failure,” published in the January 2023 issue of Cardiovascular Disease by Alahmad et al.

Patients with heart failure (HF) frequently experience cachexia. Therefore, patients admitted to the hospital with HF were analyzed for their cachexia status, and their clinical outcomes were compared with and without cachexia. From the National Readmissions Database (NRD) for 2016–2019, researchers retrieved all adult cases with a primary diagnosis of HF who were released between January and November. Cases that didn’t meet the exclusion criteria were either lacking data or diagnosed with AIDS, liver failure, kidney failure, chronic lung illness, or cancer. The use of proper weighting obtained national estimates. 

Patients with HF with cachexia had a higher risk of in-hospital death, longer stay, and readmission within 30 days than patients without cachexia. Cachexia’s impact on clinical outcomes was calculated using multivariable logistic regression. A survey was conducted using Statistical Analysis Software 9.4. There were a total of 2,360,307 hospitalizations associated with HF that were included in the final study. Nearly 7% of the people surveyed had cachexia. Female patients with cachexia outnumbered male patients by a ratio of 52% to 47%, and the average age of patients with cachexia was 77 years, while that of patients without cachexia was 72 years. 

Patients with cardiac cachexia had a higher risk of death during hospitalization (odds ratio 3.01, 95% CI 2.88 to 3.15, P<0.001), a longer length of stay in the hospital (9 vs. 5 days, P<0.0001), and a higher risk of all-cause 30-day readmissions (23% vs 21%, P<0.0001). Increased in-hospital mortality, greater resource utilization, and higher healthcare expenses are all associated with cachexia caused by HF.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0002914922011109