ACUTE HEART FAILURE

Objectives: To determine the frequency of the major precipitating factorsamong the patients presenting with acute heart failure. Study Design: Cross sectional study.Setting: Faisalabad Institute of Cardiology, Faisalabad. Period: July 2014 to January 2015.Materials and Methods: 190 patients of acute heart failure were included after obtaininginformed consent from emergency department. Patients from age of 25 years to 80 years andof either sex either diabetic or non-diabetic were enrolled in study. ECG and CXR were takenin emergency with baseline investigations. Precipitating cause was identified from collectedhistory, clinical examination and ECG, CXR and lab results. Results: Mean age of these patientswere 54.4 + 8.92, 100 (52.6%) were male, 90 (47.4%) were females, 88 patients (46.3%) werediabetic, 102 patients (53.68%) were non-diabetic and 124 (65.3%) had previous history of heartfailure and 66 (34.7%) had no past history of heart failure. ACS was the common precipitatingfactor of Acute Heart Failure ( 31.57% ) among all the patients of the study with non-complianceof drugs 27.9% , arrhythmias 17.9% uncontrolled hypertension 17.36% and infections 5.3%.Conclusion: Young, male, diabetics and patients with history of chronic HF suffered more fromAHF. ACS was the most common precipitating factor while in patients with de novo Acute HeartFailure; it was ACS and non-compliance with drugs.