MONDAY, Feb. 27 (HealthDay News) -- A low score on the 100-point Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) is a predictor of a poor prognosis in outpatients with heart failure, investigators with the Cardiovascular Outcomes Research Consortium report in the Feb. 21 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Using the KCCQ, Paul A. Heidenreich, M.D., of the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California, and colleagues evaluated 505 outpatients with heart failure and ejection fractions below 40 percent who attended 13 outpatient clinics across the country. Mean age was 61 years, 76 percent were men and 51 percent had ischemic heart failure.
Nine percent had KCCQ scores below 25. During one year of follow-up, 37 percent of those patients had been admitted to the hospital for heart failure and 20 percent had died.
In contrast, among the 33 percent of patients with KCCQ scores of 75 or higher, hospitalization for heart failure occurred in 7 percent, and 5 percent had died.
The Consortium investigators conclude that "the KCCQ summary score provided prognostic information independent of these standard characteristics, even when supplemented with six-minute walk distance and blood natriuretic protein level."
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