Hospital mortality in decompensated heart failure. A pilot study

Abstract Background/aim Heart failure is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide and it is a major cause of emergency department access for cardiovascular disease patients. Aim of this study was to identify the electrocardiographic (ECG) markers, based on short-term temporal repolarization dispersion, capable to individuate decompensated chronic heart failure (CHF) patients at high mortality risk. Methods We obtained the following variables from an ECG recording, monitored via mobile phone, during 5-minute recordings in decompensated CHF patients: RR, QT end (QTe), QT peak (QTp) and T peak to T end (Te) and we calculated mean, standard deviation (SD) and normalized index (N). Results In-hospital mortality occurred for 25 subjects on 101 studied (25%). Deceased patients showed higher QTeSD (p  Conclusions The Te mean and TeSD seem to be a promising noninvasive clinical marker able to identify patients with decompensated CHF at high risk of in-hospital mortality.