Diagnosis of Nonischemic Stage B Heart Failure in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

This study sought to identify whether impaired global longitudinal strain (GLS), diastolic dysfunction (DD), or left atrial enlargement (LAE) should be added to stage B heart failure (SBHF) criteria in asymptomatic patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.SBHF is a precursor to clinical heart failure (HF), and its recognition justifies initiation of cardioprotective therapy. However, original definitions of SBHF were based on LV hypertrophy and impaired ejection fraction.Patients with asymptomatic type 2 diabetes mellitus ≥65 years of age (age 71 ± 4 years; 55% men) with preserved ejection fraction and no ischemic heart disease were recruited from a community-based population. All underwent a standard clinical evaluation, and a comprehensive echocardiogram, including assessment of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), LAE, DD (abnormal E/e'), and GLS (<16%). Over a median follow-up of 1.5 years (range 0.5 to 3), 20 patients were lost to follow-up, and 290 individuals were entered into the final analyses.In this asymptomatic group, LV dysfunction was identified in 30 (10%) by DD, 68 (23%) by LVH, 102 (35%) by LAE, and 68 (23%) by impaired GLS. New-onset HF developed in 45 patients and 4 died, giving an event rate of 112/1,000 person-years. Survival free of the composite endpoint (HF and death) was about 1.5-fold higher in patients without a normal, compared with an abnormal echocardiogram. LVH, LAE, and GLS <16% were associated with increased risk of the composite endpoint, independent of ARIC risk score and glycosylated hemoglobin, but abnormal E/e' was not. The addition of left atrial volume and GLS provided incremental value to the current standard of clinical risk (ARIC score) and LVH. In a competing-risks regression analysis, LVH (hazard ratio: 2.90; p < 0.001) and GLS <16% (hazard ratio: 2.26; p = 0.008), but not DD and LAE were associated with incident HF.Subclinical left ventricular systolic dysfunction is prevalent in asymptomatic elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, and impaired GLS is independent and incremental to LVH in the prediction of incident HF.