Heart Risk 6 Scale in Emergency Department Acute Heart Failure Patients

Recently, the heartrisk6 scale was introduced to predict the short-term serious outcomes in emergency department acute heart failure patients. It was created from 3 cohorts from American and Canadian population. Since the Egyptian population differ from the American and Canadian population regarding the age at presentation with cardiovascular disease, risk factors and etiology of the acute heart failure, we sought to detect the applicability of this score on our population.

Inclusion criteria

• patients who have appropriate symptoms (short-ness of breath or fatigue)(<7 days duration); with clinical signs of fluid retention (pulmonary or peripheral) in the presence of an underlying abnormality of cardiac structure or function.

• If in doubt, a beneficial response to treatment (eg, a brisk diuresis accompanied by improvement in breathlessness) will be considered.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients who did not fit the definition of AHF or who were clearly too ill to be considered for discharge after 24 hours from ED:

• 1) resting oxygen saturation <85% on room air
• 2) heart rate >120 beats/min;
• 3) systolic blood pressure <85 mm Hg;
• 4) confusion, disorientation, dementia;
• 5) primary presentation for ischemic chest pain requiring treatment or with acute ischemic ST-Tchanges on initial electrocardiogram (ECG);