Patient-level comparison of heart failure patients in clinical phenotype and prognosis from China and Sweden

BACKGROUND: Clinical phenotype and prognosis of heart failure (HF) may be variable among different racial populations. Therefore, a patient-level comparison of hospitalized HF patients in two university hospitals from China and Sweden was performed. METHODS AND RESULTS: This study was a pooled data analysis of the patients prospectively enrolled in two single-center studies in China (n = 949) and Sweden (n = 1639) from 2011 to 2015. Clinical characteristics and 6-month all-cause mortality were collected. Higher systolic blood pressure (126.1 ± 20.3 vs. 114.2 ± 15.4 mmHg, p < 0.001) and NT-proBNP level (4540 vs. 3251 pg/mL, p = 0.013) were found in the Swedish cohort, also more patients with ischemic heart disease (32.0% vs. 19.2%), hypertension (64.2% vs. 36.8%), valvular heart disease (40.9% vs.31.6%) and atrial fibrillation (55.3% vs. 39.6%) (all p < 0.001). The use of ACEIs/ARBs (48.8% vs. 80.8%) or beta-blockers (58.8% vs. 86.5%) (both p < 0.001) was lower in Chinese cohort. Given younger age in Chinese cohort (61.6 vs. 76.4 years, p < 0.001), age-stratified analyses were conducted, as there were similar patient numbers in 50–74 years in Chinese (n = 550) and Swedish (n = 554) cohorts, therefore baseline characteristics and prognosis were further compared. The age- and sex-adjusted outcome (HR 0.80 [95% CI 0.55–1.19], p = 0.273) was comparable between the two populations. The NT-proBNP and eGFR independently predicted 6-month mortality in both Chinese (HR [95% CI] 1.006 [1.003–1.008], 0.986 [0.976–0.999]) and Swedish cohort (1.003 [1.000–1.007], 0.988 [0.976–0.999]). CONCLUSIONS: Patient-level comparison of real-world HF populations from China and Sweden demonstrated different clinical phenotypes and therapy but similar prognosis and their predictors. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12872-022-02540-w.