Validity of heart failure diagnosis in patients with obesity

1. Abstract Degree Project, Programme in Medicine, “Validity of heart failure diagnosis in patients with obesity” by Karin Andréasson, 2018, Institute of Medicine, Gothenburg, Sweden. Supervisor Annika Rosengren 1.1 Background Heart failure (HF) is a syndrome affecting the function of the heart where the main symptoms are dyspnea, fatigue and peripheral edema. Patients with obesity often present similar symptoms to those seen in HF, and diagnosing HF in this patient group is known to provide some difficulty. The validity of HF diagnosis in the Swedish discharge register has previously been shown to be high, but the validity in patients with concurrent obesity has not been investigated. 1.2 Methods and results The study population consisted of all patients registered with a diagnostic code of obesity at the Obesity Care Unit (2000-2006) or at the Regional Obesity Centre (2007-2017) and who had a concurrent HF code either at Sahlgrenska university hospital or at the nearby Kungälv hospital, both in western Sweden. Relevant information from patient records was filled in using a form designed for the purpose of this study. The HF diagnosis was then classified as definite, probable or miscoded by a team consisting of a medical student and an experienced cardiologist. Out of 8,202 obese patients, 77 had a HF diagnosis. After exclusions, HF could be validated in 45 patients. Of these, 64.4 % were classified as definite, 33.3 % as probable and 2.2 % as miscoded, which is comparable to a prior study in unselected HF patients. 1.3 Conclusion The validity of HF diagnosis in obese patients is comparable to the validity in patients without obesity. Because of the limited size of this study population, further and larger studies are needed to verify these results.