Use of angiotensin receptor blocker is associated with improved 1 year mortality in heart failure with mid‐range ejection fraction

AIMS: Current evidence about the effect of angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) on the outcome of heart failure with mid‐range ejection fraction (HFmrEF) is lacking. We aim to assess the association between use of ARB and 1 year all‐cause mortality after hospitalization for HFmrEF. METHODS AND RESULTS: We analysed the data of patients with ejection fraction of 40–49% in China Patient‐centred Evaluative Assessment of Cardiac Events Prospective Heart Failure Study; 4907 patients hospitalized for heart failure from 52 Chinese hospitals were enrolled from August 2016 to May 2018. Use of ARB was determined by prescriptions at discharge. Patients who died during hospitalization or were using angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitors at discharge were excluded. The association between the use of ARB and outcome was assessed using stabilized inverse probability of treatment weighting‐adjusted Kaplan–Meier and Cox regression analyses. A total of 701 patients with HFmrEF were included for analysis. The mean age was 66.4 ± 12.8 years, and 267 (38.1%) were female. Of them, 244 were treated (34.8%) with ARB. During the 1 year follow‐up period, patients treated with ARB had lower all‐cause mortality compared with untreated patients (11.5% vs. 21.9%, P = 0.0005). Inverse probability of treatment weighting‐adjusted Cox regression analysis showed that use of ARB was associated with significantly reduced all‐cause mortality (adjusted hazard ratio 0.44, 95% confidence interval 0.28–0.69, P = 0.0004). CONCLUSIONS: Among patients hospitalized for HFmrEF, the use of ARB was associated with lower 1 year mortality after discharge.