Ventricular arrhythmias not meeting criteria for terminating cardiopulmonary exercise testing stratify prognosis and disease severity in heart failure of preserved, midrange, and reduced ejection fraction

Abstract

Background: Continued high mortality in heart failure patients indicates the need for additional methods of risk stratification and phenotyping. Hypothesis: We hypothesized that ventricular arrhythmias that do not meet test-termination criteria (non-terminating ventricular arrhythmias [NTVA]) during cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) may help in phenotyping disease severity and prognosis in heart failure with reduced (HFrEF) and midrange (HFmrEF)/preserved (HFpEF) left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). Methods: About 319 patients with heart failure (199 HFrEF; 80 HFmrEF; 41 HFpEF) underwent CPET. Tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE) and pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) were measured by echocardiography. B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) at rest and peak exercise was also determined. The patients were tracked for primary (cardiac death) and secondary composite outcomes (all-cause death, heart transplantation/left ventricular assist device implantation, hospitalization for cardiac reasons). Results: Forty-seven (15%) of the patients demonstrated NTVA during CPET, regardless of coronary artery disease prevalence. Patients without arrhythmias had a significantly higher LVEF (P