A Long-Term Incidence of Heart Failure and Predictors Following Newly Developed Acute Myocardial Infarction: A 10 Years Retrospective Cohort Study with Korean National Health Insurance Data

Heart failure (HF) is the major mechanism of mortality in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) during early or intermediate post-AMI period. But heart failure is one of the most common long-term complications of AMI. Applied the retrospective cohort study design with nation representative population data, this study traced the incidence of late-onset heart failure since 1 year after newly developed acute myocardial infarction and assessed its risk factors. Methods and Results: Using the Korea National Health Insurance database, 18,328 newly developed AMI patients aged 40 years or older and first hospitalized in 2010 for 3 days or more, were set up as baseline cohort (12,403). The incidence rate of AMI per 100,000 persons was 79.8 overall, and 49.6 for women and 112.3 for men. A total of 2010 (1073 men, 937 women) were newly developed with HF during 6 years following post AMI. Cumulative incidences of HF per 1000 AMI patients for a year at each time period were 37.4 in initial hospitalization, 32.3 in 1 year after discharge, and 8.9 in 1–6 years. The overall and age-specific incidence rates of HF were higher in women than men. For late-onset HF, female, medical aid, pre-existing hypertension, severity of AMI, duration of hospital stay during index admission, reperfusion treatment, and drug prescription pattern including diuretics, affected the occurrence of late-onset HF. Conclusion: With respect to late-onset HF following AMI, appropriate management including hypertension and medical aid program in addition to quality improvement of AMI treatment are required to reduce the risk of late-onset heart failure.