Application of the Seattle Heart Failure Model in patients on cardiac resynchronization therapy

Background: The Seattle Heart Failure Model (SHFM) is a multimarker risk assessment tool able to predict outcome in heart failure (HF) patients.

Aim: To assess whether the SHFM can be used to risk-stratify HF patients who underwent cardiac resynchronization therapy with (CRT-D) or without (CRT) an implantable defibrillator.

Methods and results: The SHFM was applied to 342 New York Heart Association class III-IV patients who received a CRT (23%) or CRT-D (77%) device. Discrimination and calibration of SHFM were evaluated through c-statistics and Hosmer-Lemeshow (H-L) goodness-of-fit test. Primary endpoint was a composite of death from any cause/cardiac transplantation. During a median follow-up of 24 months (25th-75th percentile [pct]: 12-37 months), 78 of 342 (22.8%) patients died; seven patients underwent urgent transplantation. Median SHFM score for patients with endpoint was 5.8 years (25th-75th pct: 4.25-8.7 years) versus 8.9 years (25th-75th pct: 6.6-11.8 years) for those without (P < 0.001). Discrimination of SHFM was adequate for the endpoint (c-statistic always ranged around 0.7). The SHFM was a good fit of death from any cause/cardiac transplantation, without significant differences between observed and SHFM-predicted survival.

Conclusion: The SHFM successfully stratifies HF patients on CRT/CRT-D and can be reliably applied to help clinicians in predicting survival in this clinical setting.