Prognostic usefulness of planar

Background: To evaluate whether planar 123I-MIBG myocardial scintigraphy predicts risk of death in heart failure (HF) patients up to 5 years after imaging. Methods and results: Subjects from ADMIRE-HF were followed for approximately 5 years after imaging (964 subjects, median follow-up 62.7 months). Subjects were stratified according to the heart/mediastinum (H/M) ratio (\u3c 1.60 vs ≥ 1.60) on planar 123I-MIBG scintigraphic images obtained at baseline in ADMIRE-HF. Cox proportional hazards models and Kaplan-Meier analyses were used to evaluate time to death, cardiac death, or arrhythmic events for subjects stratified by H/M ratio, baseline left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF: \u3c 25% and 25 to ≤ 35%), and by H/M strata within LVEF strata. All-cause mortality was 38.4% vs 20.9% and cardiac mortality was 16.8% vs 4.5%, in subjects with H/M \u3c 1.60 vs ≥ 1.60, respectively (P \u3c 0.05 for both comparisons). Subjects with preserved sympathetic innervation of the myocardium (H/M ≥ 1.60) were at significantly lower risk of all-cause and cardiac death, arrhythmic events, sudden cardiac death, or potentially life-threatening arrhythmias. Within LVEF strata, a trend toward a higher mortality for subjects with H/M \u3c 1.60 was observed reaching significance for LVEF 25 to ≤ 35% only. Conclusions: During a median follow-up of 62.7 months, patients with H/M ≥ 1.60 were at significantly lower risk of death and arrhythmic events independently of LVEF values. Keywords: 123I-MIBG; cardiac death; congestive heart failure; prognosis