Early in-hospital use of SGLT2i in heart failure patients with ischemic etiology

Abstract

Purpose: SGLT2i role in the treatment of heart failure (HF) regardless of clinical presentation and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) has been widely proven and real-world data regarding patients with HF and ischemic heart disease (IHD) and, in particular with recent acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and de novo HF, are lacking. We aim to evaluate the occurrence of the composite of cardiovascular death (CV)/ HF hospitalization (HFH), all-cause death, CV death and HFH at 6 months follow up, in patients with HF due to IHD as well as in recent ACS who introduced SGLT2i during the index hospitalization.

Methods: The present is an observational, prospective, single center study, enrolling patients with a diagnosis of HF due to IHD as primary etiology. According to SGLT2i introduction timing, two groups were created: pre-discharge (G1) or post-discharge (G2) introduction. A sub-analysis in patients admitted due to ACS has been performed.

Results: A total of 222 consecutive patients have been enrolled from April 2022 to April 2024 and were followed-up for a period of 6 months. At multivariate Cox regression analysis, statistically significant differences have been observed between the two groups in terms of the composite CV death/HFH (HR = 0.24; 95%CI [0.101-0.564]; p = 0.001), all-cause death (HR = 0.27; 95% CI [0.100-0.725]; p = 0.009), CV death (HR = 0.32; 95%CI [0.101-0.999] p = 0.045) and HFH (HR = 0.31; 95%CI [0.098-0.963]; p = 0.043). Patients with ACS treated with SGLT2i before discharge showed a reduced rate of CV death/HFH (log-rank p = 0.008), CV death (log-rank p = 0.015) and all-cause death (log-rank p = 0.005) compared to patients who were not treated with SGLT2i before discharge. In this subpopulation, no differences have been observed in terms of HFH (log-rank p = 0.155). Significant differences in term of CV death/HFH (log-rank p = 0.039) have been observed in de novo HF patients, but not in terms of the other study endpoints.

Conclusions: The early in-hospital introduction of SGLT2i reduced the occurrence of the composite CV death/HFH, all-cause death, CV death and HFH in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy. In the subgroup analysis of patients admitted due to ACS, the introduction of SGLT2i during the index hospitalization resulted in a significant reduction of the composite CV death/HFH, CV death and all-cause death, but not in HFH. The same therapeutic strategy resulted in reduced rate of CV death/HFH in the de novo HF subpopulation.

Keywords: Acute coronary syndrome; Cardiovascular mortality; Heart failure; Hospitalization; Ischemic heart disease; SGLT2i.