The utility of galectin-3 for predicting cause-specific death in hospitalized patients with heart failure

Objectives: Galectin-3 has been shown to be involved in the process of cardiac fibrosis and to predict adverse events in heart failure (HF), but the association of galectin-3 with cause-specific death has not been well established. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prognostic value of baseline galectin-3 for all-cause, cardiovascular (CV), and in-hospital death in patients with HF.

Methods and results: From March 2009 to April 2013, we consecutively measured galectin-3 in a large cohort of 1,440 hospitalized patients with HF. Cox proportional hazards regression, discrimination, and reclassification analyses were used to evaluate the association between galectin-3 and death. During a median follow-up of 582 days, 283 deaths were identified, of which 64 were patients who died during hospitalization. Compared with the lowest galectin-3 tertile, the highest 2 tertiles were significantly associated with all-cause, CV, and progressive HF death, but not significant for sudden and in-hospital death when analyzed by multivariable Cox regression. The utility of combining galectin-3 and N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide was assessed by dichotomizing these 2 biomarkers according to their median values. The highest risk of death due to all-cause, CV, and progressive HF was observed when both biomarkers were elevated after adjustment for established risk factors. Addition of galectin-3 to the prediction model for all-cause and CV death significantly improved discrimination and reclassification.

Conclusions: Galectin-3 independently predicted death and added additional prognostic value beyond established risk factors in hospitalized patients with HF. The utility of galectin-3 alone as a risk predictor was not strong enough to assess sudden or in-hospital death.