Heart failureLong-Term Survival of Patients With Heart Failure and Ventricular Conduction Delay Treated With Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy
Section snippets
Patients
One thousand three hundred three adult patients with moderate to severe HF caused by left ventricular systolic dysfunction (ejection fraction ≤35%) of ischemic or nonischemic origin and with ventricular conduction delay (QRS duration ≥120 ms) treated with CRT were included. All patients were consecutively treated from August 1, 1995 to August 1, 2004 at 4 European institutions using a prospectively predefined registry protocol. Patients were referred because of persistent HF symptoms despite
Patient characteristics
Outcome information could not be retrieved in 5 patients who were therefore excluded from further analysis. Characteristics of the 1,298 patients are presented in Table 1. Origin was confirmed in all patients by coronary angiography, and the cause of HF was coronary artery disease in 54% of patients. Each patient was on a median of 4 active cardiovascular drugs. About 75% of patients presented with left bundle branch block QRS morphology, and 15% of patients had been constantly paced due to
Discussion
This is the first large, long-term, prospectively defined observational study on CRT in symptomatic patients with moderate to severe HF and ventricular conduction delay. Our results extend those of previous, randomized, controlled studies of CRT on mortality5, 6, 7 showing a very favorable outcome of patients treated with CRT in real-world clinical practice. Cumulative event-free survivals were 92% and 56% at 1 and 5 years, respectively, with a high consistency across the 4 European centers.
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