OBJECTIVE—The goal of this study was to determine heart failure prevalence and incidence rates, subsequent mortality, and risk factors for heart failure among older populations in Medicare with diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—We used a national 5% sample of Medicare claims from 1994 to 1999 to perform a population-based, nonconcurrent cohort study in 151,738 beneficiaries with diabetes who were age ≥65 years, not in managed care, and were alive on 1 January 1995. Prevalent heart failure was defined as a diagnosis of heart failure in 1994; incident heart failure was defined as a new diagnosis in 1995–1999 among those without prevalent heart failure. Mortality was assessed through 31 December 1999. RESULTS—Heart failure was prevalent in 22.3% in 1994. Among individuals without heart failure in 1994, the heart failure incidence rate was 12.6 per 100 person-years (95% CI 12.5–12.7 per 100 person-years). Incidence was similar by sex and race and increased significantly with age and diabetes-related comorbidities. The adjusted hazard of incident heart failure increased for individuals with the following: metabolic complications of diabetes (a proxy for poor control and/or severity) (hazards ratio 1.23, 95% CI 1.18–1.29), ischemic heart disease (1.74, 1.70–1.79), nephropathy (1.55, 1.45–1.67), and peripheral vascular disease (1.35, 1.31–1.39). Over 60 months, incident heart failure among older adults with diabetes was associated with high mortality—32.7 per 100 person-years compared with 3.7 per 100 person-years among those with diabetes who remained heart failure free. CONCLUSIONS—These data demonstrate alarmingly high prevalence, incidence, and mortality for heart failure in individuals with diabetes. Prevention of heart failure should be a research and clinical priority.

Objective To determine if low to moderate doses of anthracycline-based chemotherapy (Anth-bC) are associated with subclinical cardiovascular (CV) injury. Background Cancer survivors that receive Anth-bC experience premature CV events. It is unknown whether low to moderate doses of anthracyclines a) promote early subclinical CV disease manifested by deteriorations in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) or increases in aortic stiffness, or b) are associated with change in quality of life (QOL). Methods In 53 men and women with breast cancer, leukemia, or lymphoma, we assessed left ventricular volumes, LVEF, circumferential strain, aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV), late gadolinium enhancement, serum B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), troponin I (TnI), and the impact of treatment on QOL before, and 1, 3, and 6 months after receipt of Anth-bC. Results Participants averaged 50±2 (range 19–80) years in age, 58% were women, 17% were black, and they each received a range of 50 to 375 mg/m2 of doxorubicin equivalent chemotherapy. Left ventricular end systolic volume (LVESV; 48±3 to 54±3 ml; p=0.02), left ventricular strain (−17.7±0.4 to −15.1±0.4; p=0.0003), PWV (6.7±0.5 to 10.1±1 m/sec; p=0.0006), and QOL deterioration (15.4±3.3 to 28.5±3.9; p=0.008) increased, while LVEF (58±1 to 53±1%; p=0.0002) decreased within 6 months after low to moderate doses of Anth-bC. All findings persisted after accounting for age, gender, race (white/black), doxorubicin equivalent dose, doxorubicin administration technique, comorbidities associated with CV events, and cancer diagnosis (p=0.02 to 0.0001 for all). There were no new late gadolinium enhancement findings after 6 months. Conclusions Low to moderate doses of Anth-bC are associated with the early development of subclinical abnormalities of cardiac and vascular function that in other populations are associated with the future occurrence of CV events.

Fast cine cardiac MRI provides a mechanism to assess left ventricular contraction and diagnose inducible myocardial ischemia in patients not well suited for stress echocardiography.

Background-Regional assessments of left ventricular (LV) wall motion obtained during MRI cardiac stress tests can be used to identify myocardial injury and ischemia, but the utility of MRI stress test results for the assessment of cardiac prognosis is not known. Methods and Results-Two hundred seventy-nine patients referred (because of poor LV endocardial visualization with echocardiography) for dobutamine/atropine MRI for the detection of inducible ischemia were followed for an average of 20 months. After MRI stress testing, the occurrence of myocardial infarction, cardiac death, death attributable to any cause, coronary arterial revascularization, and unstable angina or congestive heart failure requiring hospitalization was determined. In a multivariate analysis, the presence of inducible ischemia (hazard ratio 3.3, CI 1.1 to 9.7) or an LV ejection fraction Ͻ40% (hazard ratio 4.2, CI 1.3 to 13.9) was associated with future MI or cardiac death independent of the presence of risk factors for coronary arteriosclerosis. Conclusions-In patients with poor echocardiograms, the results of cardiac MRI stress tests can be used to forecast myocardial infarction or cardiac death.

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