Infective Endocarditis Outcomes in Congestive Heart Failure Patients

Abstract

Background/objectives: The aim of this study is to analyze the difference in hospital outcomes for infective endocarditis (IE) admissions with and without comorbid congestive heart failure (CHF). Methods: The National Inpatient Sample (NIS) was the database we used to find and sort patient data from inpatient hospitalizations. We then used logit probit regression to analyze the association between patients admitted for IE with and without CHF and their all-cause mortality rates. After collecting our sample population, we used propensity score matching to create our comparative cohorts of IE patients which were then analyzed to determine if there was an association between inpatient hospital outcomes and the presence of CHF. Results: Among the patients admitted for IE, there was a statistically significant association between comorbid CHF diagnoses and an increase in all-cause mortality during hospital admission. The proportion of mortality was 7.8% during the hospitalization for IE admissions with comorbid CHF, while the proportion was 4.16% for the subset of IE admissions without comorbid CHF. The association of comorbid CHF and all-cause mortality during the hospital stay for IE admissions was significant with an odds ratio of 3.197 (2.089-4.891) after adjusting for age, sex, race, income, and other comorbidities. The association between the requirement for either temporary or continuous pacing during the hospital stay and co-existing CHF diagnosis in IE admissions was also significant with an odds ratio of 2.86 (1.720-4.761). Among the propensity-matched cohort analysis, there was a significantly higher proportion of IE admissions with co-existing CHF needing pacing (either temporary or continuous), 5.74% (3.96%-8.25%) compared to the IE cohort without comorbid CHF: 1.48% (0.71%-3.09%). Conclusion: With the results of our analyses proving a significant association between the presence of CHF and adverse in-hospital outcomes in IE admissions, it calls for further prospective and real-world studies to analyze the finer aspects of the association. This becomes important for clinicians in stratifying at-risk patients for a higher level of care and prognostication aspects of the treatment. Our study results prove a causative association between the presence of CHF and heart block in IE admissions. This could be useful for clinicians in planning appropriate management plans in the event of initial signs of bradycardia and hypotension developing in this patient population.