Characteristics and Outcomes of Hospitalized Patients With Heart Failure and Reduced vs Preserved Ejection Fraction

substantial portion of patients with symptomatic heart failure (HF) have been reported to have relatively normal or preserved left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (EF).1 ‘HF with preserved EF’ has been defined as the presence of typical HF symptoms and signs of an EF of more than 40 or 50%. Previous studies, including our own, showed that HF patients with preserved EF are older, more often female, and have hypertension compared to those with reduced EF.1–4 Recent large scale registry databases, such as EuroHeart Failure Survey, Acute Decompensated Heart Failure National Registry (ADHERE), and Organized Program to Initiate Lifesaving Treatment in Hospitalized Patients With Heart Failure (OPTIMIZE-HF) showed that patients with preserved and reduced EF had a similar prognosis.5–7 However, in the EuroHeart Failure Survey, the detailed clinical information such as echocardiographic data was not provided and the outcomes were assessed by repeat interviews in 12 weeks of follow-up.5 In the ADHERE study, the outcome information was limited during the hospital stay and longterm outcome data were not collected.6 The OPTIMIZE-HF limited the post-discharge follow-up up to 60–90 days.7 Therefore, even though these registries studied the outcomes in a large and broad sample of patients with HF, very little information is currently available based on the data with sufficient number of patients and the long-term follow-up over 1 year. Furthermore, these studies have been conducted mainly