Development and validation of a risk score to predict early mortality in recipients of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators

Long-term Mortality Outcomes of Hyperkalemic Patients in the Emergency Department Setting: A Case Control Study

“…The myocardium in advanced CKD non ESRD patients may be more sensitive to arrhythmogenic effects of hyperkalemia secondary to increased left ventricular mass or scarring. Current literature points to low GFR or reduced renal function as an independent risk factor for cardiac arrhythmias in varied populations [30,31] and increased mortality among patients with implantable cardiac defibrillators [32]. This interaction between low GFR and HF in the hyperkalemic patient needs to be further explored.…”

Prognostic factors in heart failure — are they all equally important?

“…Understandably, the abundance of those variables: 1) derives from complex pathophysiological pathways of HF development as well as from the fact that advanced HF affects function of other critical organs, and 2) denotes the need for more comprehensive means of assessment of prognosis in these patients because no single parameter is sufficient on its own. Thus, different risk scores, encompassing various numbers of predictive variables, have been proposed for risk stratification in HF [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. A recent meta-analysis reported as many as 117 models, using 249 different variables [20].…”

“…Other strong predictors of death in HF, consistently reported across different models, include diabetes, BNP/NT-proBNP concentration, weight or body mass index, and exercise capacity [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Of all prognostic variables, LVEF and NYHA class belong to the most useful and powerful predictors of long-term HF outcomes.…”

Inducible Fast Ventricular Tachycardia After ST-Segment–Elevation Myocardial Infarction

“…27 Furthermore, the incorporation of nonelectrophysiology metrics, such as peripheral arterial disease, might improve sensitivity and specificity of predicting prognosis. 28 To conclude, although spontaneous and induced ventricular arrhythmias have long been recognized to be risk factors for both SCD, and indeed total mortality, interventions directed at arrhythmia markers themselves have been uniformly ineffective and often harmful. In this article, the majority of events were ICD detections and not death, and if these were taken away, total mortality dwarfs SCD.…”