Methods:
We examined a cohort of 5203 patients to 5 hospitals in a regional health care system — who had at least one admission to the hospital with diagnoses of heart failure over a 3-year period. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were constructed for patients with downtrending (>25% net decrease), stable or uptrending (>25% net increase) NT-proBNP levels in HF, HFpEF and HFrEF patients. The log-rank test was used to test for differences in 6-month survival amongst the groups. Multivariate extended Cox regression models were constructed for 6-month survival with NT-proBNP as a time-varying covariate. Age, albumin, sex, race, serum creatinine, systolic and diastolic blood pressures and Charlson comorbidity scores at baseline were used as covariates in the model. Separate analyses were done for HFpEF and HFrEF patients.