• Yiyi Zhang, Robert Kennedy, Elena Blasco-Colmenares, Barbara Butcher, Sanaz Norgard, Zayd Eldadah, Timm Dickfeld, Kenneth A Ellenbogen, Joseph E Marine, Eliseo Guallar, Gordon F Tomaselli, and Alan Cheng.
• Departments of Epidemiology and Medicine, and Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland.
• Heart Rhythm. 2014 Aug 1; 11 (8): 1377-83.

BackgroundImplantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) reduce the risk of death in patients with left ventricular dysfunction. Little is known regarding the benefit of this therapy in African Americans (AAs).ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to determine the association between AA race and outcomes in a cohort of primary prevention ICD patients.MethodsWe conducted a prospective cohort study of patients with systolic heart failure who underwent ICD implantation for primary prevention of sudden cardiac death. The primary end-point was appropriate ICD shock defined as a shock for rapid ventricular tachyarrhythmias. The secondary end-point was all-cause mortality.ResultsThere were 1189 patients (447 AAs and 712 non-AAs) enrolled. Over a median follow-up of 5.1 years, a total of 137 patients experienced an appropriate ICD shock, and 343 died (294 of whom died without receiving an appropriate ICD shock). The multivariate adjusted hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) comparing AAs vs non-AAs were 1.24 (0.96-1.59) for all-cause mortality, 1.33 (1.02, 1.74) for all-cause mortality without receiving appropriate ICD shock, and 0.78 (0.51, 1.19) for appropriate ICD shock. Ejection fraction, diabetes, and hypertension appeared to explain 24.1% (10.1%-69.5%), 18.7% (5.3%-58.0%), and 13.6% (3.8%-53.6%) of the excess risk of mortality in AAs, with a large proportion of the mortality difference remaining unexplained.ConclusionIn patients with primary prevention ICDs, AAs had an increased risk of dying without receiving an appropriate ICD shock compared to non-AAs.Copyright © 2014 Heart Rhythm Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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