Volume 24, Issue 102, March - April, 2020

Study of Anemia in Chronic Heart Failure

Barinder Kaur¹, Saurabh Marwaha², Bimal K Agrawal^3♦

¹Resident, Department of Medicine, M M Institute of Medical Sciences & Research, Maharishi Markandeshwar Deemed to be University, Mullana-133207, Haryana, India
²Assistant professor, Department of Medicine, M M Institute of Medical Sciences & Research, Maharishi Markandeshwar Deemed to be University, Mullana-133207, Haryana, India
³Professor of Medicine, M M Institute of Medical Sciences & Research, Maharishi Markandeshwar Deemed to be University, Mullana133207, Haryana, India

^♦Corresponding author
Professor of Medicine, M M Institute of Medical Sciences & Research, Maharishi Markandeshwar Deemed to be University, Mullana-133207, Haryana, India; Email: onlybimal@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Heart failure is a complex clinical syndrome that results from structural or functional impairment of ventricular filling or ejection of blood. Anemia in chronic heart failure (CHF) is associated with poor outcomes and is very frequent comorbidity. Development of anemia in patients with chronic heart failure can be multifactorial with major attribution towards iron deficiency. Now the concept of iron deficiency being prevalent in anemic patients has moved on to the crucial point of finding iron deficiency even in non anemic patients, suggesting iron deficiency to be an independent factor rather than just being associated with anemia. Aims & objectives: To study the prevalence of anemia in chronic heart failure and to study iron status in patients with heart failure. Material & methods: The study was carried out in patients with CHF attending medicine department of a tertiary care hospital.One hundred patients of consecutive cases of chronic heart failure were enrolled in the study after obtaining the approval from the institutional ethics committee. The participants were evaluated for the presence of anemia and were categorized as mild, moderate and severe according to the world health organisation (WHO) classification. All patients were evaluated for iron status to find out iron deficiency based on ferritin level and transferrin saturation irrespective of their anemia status. Results: Prevalence of anemia in patients with chronic heart failure according to our study was 43%. Maximum numbers of cases were in the age group of 51-70 years of age. Majority of patients in our study were males. According to New York heart association (NYHA) grading majority of patients in our study were in grade 3. According to our study mean ejection fraction was 41.14±14.84% in anemic group and 43.21±13.57% in non-anemic group. In our study, out of 100 patients 39 patients had iron deficiency. Majority of them were anemic 33 and 6 were non anemic. Six patients out of hundred patients with heart failure had iron deficiency without anemia. In our study, out of 43 patients with anemia, 33 had iron deficiency; rest of the 10 patients might be of anemia of chronic inflammation, folic acid deficiency or vitamin B12 deficiency. However in our study these were not evaluated. Conclusion: We would like to conclude the study by signifying the importance of anemia in patients with CHF. As per our study there is 43% prevalence of anemia in CHF patients which is significantly high. We would also like to focus on the prevalence of iron deficiency in chronic heart failure in both the group of patients with and without anemia which implies a major therapeutic goal for physicians.

Keywords: Iron deficiency, Heart failure, Anemia, Serum Ferritin

Medical Science, 2020, 24(102), 891-896

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