Prognostic importance of renal function in patients with early heart failure and mild left ventricular dysfunction.

We evaluated the prognostic value of renal function in an initially "untreated" population with mild heart failure and compared the prognosis of this population with a matched controlled population. During a follow-up of 13 years (mean 11.7), 90 patients (56%) died. Mortality was higher compared with a matched controlled population. Multivariate Cox regression analysis demonstrated that beside the well-established risk markers of left ventricular ejection fraction and heart rate, renal function (estimated glomerular filtration rate, hazard ratio 1.16/10 ml/min/1.73 m(2), p = 0.003) was the only additional independent predictor of cardiovascular mortality in patients with early heart failure.