Cardiac rehabilitation is defined as a multidisciplinary program that includes exercise training, cardiac risk factor modification, psychosocial assessment, and outcomes assessment. Exercise training ...and other components of cardiac rehabilitation (CR) are safe and beneficial and result in significant improvements in quality of life, functional capacity, exercise performance, and heart failure (HF)–related hospitalizations in patients with HF. Despite outcome benefits, cost-effectiveness, and strong practice guideline recommendations, CR remains underused. Clinicians, health care leaders, and payers should prioritize incorporating CR as part of the standard of care for patients with HF.
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•CR is underused among patients with HF.•ET can improve functional capacity and clinical outcomes in patients with HF.•Clinicians and payers should prioritize CR in the routine care of patients with HF.
Abstract Patient-reported outcomes (PRO) are defined as reports coming directly from patients about how they feel or function in relation to a health condition and its therapy. Although there are ...numerous compelling reasons why PRO could be an important help in clinical care, they have not evolved into clinical tools integrated into care. The purpose of this review is to assess existing PRO instruments for heart failure with respect to their psychometric properties and potential for use in clinical care. We performed a systematic search of articles published between July 2008 and January 2015 within the MEDLINE, PROMIS, PROQOLID, and Cochrane Library databases. Included instruments had to be developed and tested for heart failure and have had their development processes and psychometric properties described. A total of 31 instruments were identified, 9 of which met all inclusion criteria. After evaluating each remaining instrument in terms of psychometric and clinical criteria and symptom coverage, only 2 instruments—Minnesota Living with Heart Failure and Kansas City Cardiomyopathy questionnaire—met all evaluation criteria. Although clinically useful PRO instruments exist, increasing education to providers on the value and interpretability of PRO instruments, as well as a more streamlined approach to their implementation in the clinical setting is necessary. A clinical trial comparing the routine use of disease-specific PRO with clinical care could further support their incorporation into practice.
Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is an important component in the continuum of care for patients with cardiovascular diseases, including the older population. Benefits of CR which include mortality ...benefit, decreased hospitalizations, increased functional capacity all extend to an older population. In Medicare beneficiaries which represent an older population, utilization of CR continues to remain low despite evidence that suggests lower hospitalization rates, Medicare costs, and improved symptoms. Given poor referral rates, enrollment rates, and completion rates, a call for new strategies has been made by all major societies. However, several barriers exist. Newer models of CR constructed to overcome these barriers are reviewed below. Some of these new strategies include alternative site CR or home‐based CR and the utilization of technology.
Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a risk factor for incident heart failure and increases the risk of morbidity and mortality in patients with established disease. Secular trends in the prevalence of ...diabetes mellitus and heart failure forecast a growing burden of disease and underscore the need for effective therapeutic strategies. Recent clinical trials have demonstrated the shared pathophysiology between diabetes mellitus and heart failure, the synergistic effect of managing both conditions, and the potential for diabetes mellitus therapies to modulate the risk of heart failure outcomes. This scientific statement on diabetes mellitus and heart failure summarizes the epidemiology, pathophysiology, and impact of diabetes mellitus and its control on outcomes in heart failure; reviews the approach to pharmacological therapy and lifestyle modification in patients with diabetes mellitus and heart failure; highlights the value of multidisciplinary interventions to improve clinical outcomes in this population; and outlines priorities for future research.
Supervised aerobic exercise training (ET) is recommended for stable outpatients with heart failure (HF) with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). Frailty, a syndrome characterized by increased ...vulnerability and decreased physiologic reserve, is common in patients with HFrEF and associated with a higher risk of adverse outcomes. The effect modification of baseline frailty on the efficacy of aerobic ET in HFrEF is not known.
Stable outpatients with HFrEF randomized to aerobic ET versus usual care in the HF-ACTION (Heart Failure: A Controlled Trial Investigating Outcomes of Exercise Training) trial were included. Baseline frailty was estimated using the Rockwood frailty index (FI), a deficit accumulation-based model of frailty assessment; participants with FI scores >0.21 were identified as frail. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard models with multiplicative interaction terms (frailty × treatment arm) were constructed to evaluate whether frailty modified the treatment effect of aerobic ET on the primary composite end point (all-cause hospitalization or mortality), secondary end points (composite of cardiovascular death or cardiovascular hospitalization, and cardiovascular death or HF hospitalization), and Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire score. Separate models were constructed for continuous (FI) and categorical (frail versus not frail) measures of frailty.
Among 2130 study participants (age, 59±13 years; 28% women), 1266 (59%) were characterized as frail (FI>0.21). Baseline frailty burden significantly modified the treatment effect of aerobic ET (
interaction: FI × treatment arm=0.02; frail status frail versus nonfrail × treatment arm=0.04) with a lower risk of primary end point in frail (hazard ratio HR, 0.83 95% CI, 0.72-0.95) but not nonfrail (HR, 1.04 95% CI, 0.87-1.25) participants. The favorable effect of aerobic ET among frail participants was driven by a significant reduction in the risk of all-cause hospitalization (HR, 0.84 95% CI, 0.72-0.99). The treatment effect of aerobic ET on all-cause mortality and other secondary endpoints was not different between frail and nonfrail patients (
interaction>0.1 for each). Aerobic ET was associated with a nominally greater improvement in Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire scores at 3 months among frail versus nonfrail participants without a significant treatment interaction by frailty status (
interaction>0.2).
Among patients with chronic stable HFrEF, baseline frailty modified the treatment effect of aerobic ET with a greater reduction in the risk of all-cause hospitalization but not mortality.
Women are under-represented as leaders of cardiovascular randomized controlled trials, representing 1 in 10 lead authors of cardiovascular trials published in high-impact journals. Although the ...proportion of cardiovascular specialists who are women has increased in recent years, the proportion of cardiovascular clinical trialists who are women has not. This gap, underpinned by systemic sexism, has not been adequately addressed. The benefits of diverse randomized controlled trial leadership extend to patients and professionals. In this position statement, we present strategies adopted by some organizations to end gender inequality in research leadership. We offer an actionable roadmap for early-career researchers, scientists, academic institutions, professional societies, trial sponsors, and journals to follow, with the goal of harnessing the strength of women and under-represented groups as research leaders and facilitating a just culture in the cardiovascular clinical trial enterprise.
Abstract Background Classification of chronic heart failure (HF) is on the basis of criteria that may not adequately capture disease heterogeneity. Improved phenotyping may help inform research and ...therapeutic strategies. Objectives This study used cluster analysis to explore clinical phenotypes in chronic HF patients. Methods A cluster analysis was performed on 45 baseline clinical variables from 1,619 participants in the HF-ACTION (Heart Failure: A Controlled Trial Investigating Outcomes of Exercise Training) study, which evaluated exercise training versus usual care in chronic systolic HF. An association between identified clusters and clinical outcomes was assessed using Cox proportional hazards modeling. Differential associations between clinical outcomes and exercise testing were examined using interaction testing. Results Four clusters were identified (ranging from 248 to 773 patients in each), in which patients varied considerably among measures of age, sex, race, symptoms, comorbidities, HF etiology, socioeconomic status, quality of life, cardiopulmonary exercise testing parameters, and biomarker levels. Differential associations were observed for hospitalization and mortality risks between and within clusters. Compared with cluster 1, risk of all-cause mortality and/or all-cause hospitalization ranged from 0.65 (95% confidence interval 95% CI: 0.54 to 0.78) for cluster 4 to 1.02 (95% CI: 0.87 to 1.19) for cluster 3. However, for all-cause mortality, cluster 3 had a disproportionately lower risk of 0.61 (95% CI: 0.44 to 0.86). Evidence suggested differential effects of exercise treatment on changes in peak oxygen consumption and clinical outcomes between clusters (p for interaction <0.04). Conclusions Cluster analysis of clinical variables identified 4 distinct phenotypes of chronic HF. Our findings underscore the high degree of disease heterogeneity that exists within chronic HF patients and the need for improved phenotyping of the syndrome. (Exercise Training Program to Improve Clinical Outcomes in Individuals With Congestive Heart Failure; NCT00047437 )
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