Hanna-Riikka Lehto

Background Frailty is common among patients with advanced heart failure (HF), and screening for frailty to guide care is recommended. Although multiple tools are available to screen for frailty, the feasibility of routinely incorporating frailty screening into daily clinical practice among hospitalised advanced HF patients has not been rigorously tested. Methods This was a prospective, single-centre, quality improvement study. Two brief frailty screening tools were incorporated into palliative care consultations for all patients ≥50 years from August 2021 to October 2022. In the first phase, the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) was implemented, followed by the Study of Osteoporotic Fracture (SOF) tool or a modified SOF (mSOF) version in the second phase. The primary outcome was feasibility (%) of performing frailty screenings for this high-risk population. Results A total of 212 patients (mean age 69±10 years, 69% male, 79% white, 30% with ischaemic HF) were referred for palliative care consultation during the study period. Overall, frailty screens were completed in 86% (n=183) of patients. CFS and mSOF reached >80% of adoption, while SOF adoption was 54%. Altogether, 52% of the population screened frail by use of CFS and 52% also by mSOF. All clinicians (n=6) participating in the study reported that frailty screening tools were useful and acceptable, and 83% reported plans for continued utilisation in future clinical practice. Conclusions Frailty screening with CFS or mSOF tools was feasible in hospitalised patients with advanced HF. Tools that require physical assessment were more challenging to implement. These data support the feasibility of incorporating questionnaire-based frailty screening in a busy hospital setting.

Aims: To assess the prognosis of patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) after first myocardial revascularisation procedure in real-world practice and to compare the differences in outcomes of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) among diabetic and non-diabetic patients.Methods and results: A database was compiled from the national hospital discharge register to collect data on all cardiac revascularisations performed in Finland in 2000–2015. The outcomes (all-cause deaths, cardiovascular (CV) deaths, major CV events and need for repeat revascularisation) after the first revascularisation were identified from the national registers at 28 day, 1 year, and 3 year time points.A total of 139 242 first-time revascularisations (89 493 PCI and 49 749 CABG) were performed during the study period. Of all the revascularised patients, 24% had diabetes, and 76% were non-diabetic patients. At day 28, the risk of fatal outcomes was lower after PCI than after CABG among non-diabetic patients, whereas no difference was seen among diabetic patients. In long-term follow-up the situation was reversed with PCI showing higher risk compared with CABG for most of the outcomes. In particular, at 3 year follow-up the risk of all-cause deaths was elevated among diabetic patients [HR 1.30 (95% CI 1.22–1.38) comparing PCI with CABG] more than among non-diabetic patients [HR 1.09 (1.04–1.15)]. The same was true for CV deaths [HR 1.29 (1.20–1.38) among diabetic patients, and HR 1.03 (0.98–1.08) among non-diabetic patients].Conclusion: Although PCI was associated with better 28 day prognosis, CABG seemed to produce better long-term prognosis especially among diabetic patients.

Aims: To compare diabetic patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) needing revascularization to corresponding non-diabetic patients in terms of revascularization methods, comorbidities and urgency of procedure. We also examined the impact of patient characteristics and comorbidities on the revascularization method. Methods: We identified all diabetic (n = 33,018) and non-diabetic (n = 106,224) patients with first-ever, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) or coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) from electronic health records in Finland between 2000 and 2015. Results: Overall, PCI was the most common revascularization method. PCI outnumbered CABG in women and men both in diabetic and non-diabetic patients. However, diabetic patients were more likely to undergo CABG than PCI (OR 1.30; 95% CI 1.27-1.34, adjusted for age, gender, region of residence and procedure year). Moreover, 26.9% of diabetic patients’ urgent procedures were CABG compared to 21.6% in non-diabetic patients (p < 0.001). Among diabetic patients, prior myocardial infarction was associated with increased odds of CABG, whereas female gender, atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, hypertension and later procedure year were associated with lower odds of CABG. Conclusions: CABG has been performed more frequently in diabetic than in non-diabetic CHD patients. Nevertheless, PCI was the dominant revascularization method over CABG both in diabetic and non-diabetic patients.

Background Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the main cause of death and disability in the western world. Women are known to be older at the time of first CVD event, but the main types of CVD events and their relative importance and differences compared with men are not well known. Our aim was to evaluate gender differences in the clinical presentation of incident major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). Design A population-based study with prospective follow-up. Methods We used data from the population-based National FINRISK Surveys from years 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007. People with prevalent cardiovascular disease were excluded. In total, 27,897 participants (53, 2% women) aged 25–74 years were included in the analyses. Results During the 292,316 person-years of follow-up, 2573 MACE were identified. MACE were more frequent in men than women (1318; 95% CI 1252–1388 in men vs. 736; 686–789 in women). Men had four times more fatal coronary heart disease (CHD) events (149; 126–174 vs. 39; 28–53) and three times more non-fatal CHD events (512; 471–555 vs. 164; 141–189) than women. Stroke incidence was higher in men than women (268; 238–301 vs. 169; 145–195). Heart failure (HF) incidence did not differ between genders. The relative proportions of MACE categories differed substantially between genders: HF was the most common type among women (50% vs. 30% in men), whereas the most common type among men was CHD (50% vs. 28% in women). Conclusions Incident MACE were more common in men than women. HF was the dominant type of MACE in women, whereas CHD dominated in men.

Background: Concerns have been raised that high cardiovascular (CVD) risk is not always recognized in women and treated effectively enough. We aimed to analyze, whether there are differences between men and women in the prevalence, underlying causes and treatment of high CVD risk. Design: A cross-sectional analysis of data from population-based health examination surveys was conducted. Methods Pooled data from the population-based National FINRISK Surveys from the years 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007 were used. Subjects with any of the following were considered as having high-risk: history of a major CVD event, prevalent diabetes or 10-year risk of CVD ≥20% calculated according to the Framingham equation. Results: We identified 835 (46.0% women) high-risk subjects in the age group 25–54 years and 3587 (27.3% women) in the age group 55–74 years. In the younger age group men had more often prevalent CVD (29.3% vs 7.8%, p < 0.001) and were more likely to be smokers (46.3% vs 21.4%, p < 0.001), whereas women had more diabetes (94.0 % vs 60.5%, p < 0.001). Younger women were less likely to achieve the recommended total cholesterol level of p = 0.03) and had a lower rate of hypolipidaemic therapy (9.6% vs 21.2%, p < 0.001) and acetylsalicylic acid therapy (8.3% vs 27.7%, p < 0.001). Conclusion: Among young individuals, high CVD risk was almost as common in women as in men. It appears that the high-risk situation is not always recognized and treated adequately in young women.

Declining trends in case fatality (CF) of MI events have been generally reported in western countries. It is, however, not clear whether the development has been equally beneficial in both sexes. Data from two large population based registers, FINAMI and the Finnish National Cardiovascular Disease Register (CVDR) were used to determine whether the CF of incident MI events has declined less in women than in men. All patients aged 35 and over were included. CF was calculated for different time periods after the onset of the MI event, the main emphasis was in pre-hospital, 28-day, and 1-year CF. Figures were compared between two study periods: 1994–1996 and 2000–2002. A total of 6,342 incident MI events were recorded in FINAMI and 117,632 events in CVDR during the study periods. Comparison between the two study periods showed that the CF was generally declining. However, a slower decline in short-term CF was seen among young (aged < 55 years) women (P for sex by study period interaction in pre-hospital CF = 0.028 in FINAMI and 0.003 in CVDR, and for 28-day CF P = 0.016 in FINAMI and . Pre-hospital CF has declined less among younger women than among men and among older women. This slower decline in early CF was responsible for the slower improvement in 28-day and 1-year prognosis in young women.

Background: Studies have suggested that the prevention and treatment of coronary heart disease may not have been as effective in women as in men. Therefore, we aimed to examine whether the incidence, attack rate and mortality of myocardial infarction (MI) events have declined less in women than in men. Methods: Two large population-based MI registers, the FINAMI register and the Finnish Cardiovascular Disease Register (CVDR) were used for comparing the event rates among men and women aged ≥35 years in two time periods, 1994–1996 and 2000–2002. Results: In the FINAMI register a total of 5,252 events were recorded in men and 4,898 in women. Corresponding numbers in the CVDR were 78,709 and 70,464. Both FINAMI and CVDR data suggested smaller declines in incidence and attack rate of MI events in women than in men. In CVDR data the decline in mortality was also smaller in women than in men, while in FINAMI data this difference did not reach statistical significance. In the large CVDR data set, negative binomial regression models revealed smaller declines in incidence (p = 0.006), attack rate (p = 0.008) and mortality (p = 0.04) in women than in men aged <55 years. In persons ≥55 years no difference was observed between women and men. Conclusion: The incidence and attack rate of MI events have declined less in women aged <55 than in men of similar age. In older persons no significant differences were observed. Further studies are warranted to find out the reasons why the development has been less favourable for young women than for men.