Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi
New Delhi, May 19: A new study has revealed that heart failure patients who consult a cardiologist at least once a year have a significantly lower risk of death, yet only about 60 per cent of such patients actually make that visit.
Published in the European Heart Journal, the large-scale study involving nearly 656,000 patients in France found that those who had at least one annual appointment with a cardiologist were around 24 per cent less likely to die within the following year.
Researchers say that if all patients with heart failure were seen by a cardiologist annually, one life could be saved for every 11 to 16 patients seen.
The study was conducted by researchers using French national medical records, focusing on patients diagnosed with heart failure within the previous five years as of January 2020. The data included detailed tracking of hospitalisations, treatments, and cardiology consultations.
“Heart failure can’t typically be cured, but with the right management, symptoms can be controlled for many years,” said Dr Guillaume Baudry of the Clinical Investigation Centre at Nancy University Hospital in France. “This research shows that regular follow-up with a cardiologist can make a measurable difference in outcomes.”
The team further analysed how different groups of patients fared, based on whether they had been hospitalised recently or were using diuretics—commonly prescribed medications that help remove excess fluid from the body.
Alarmingly, two out of every five patients went the entire year without seeing a cardiologist. These patients had notably worse outcomes, including higher risks of both death and hospitalisation.
For those recently hospitalised with heart failure, four annual cardiologist visits were found to be optimal, reducing the one-year risk of death from 34.3 per cent to 18.2 per cent.
Dr Baudry emphasized the practical implications: “Even patients who seem stable can benefit greatly from specialist follow-up. We encourage patients, especially those who have been recently hospitalised or are on diuretics, to actively seek cardiology reviews.”
The study underscores the life-saving importance of routine, specialist care for managing heart failure — a condition that, while chronic, can be managed with consistent and expert oversight.