Clinical research in cardiology : official journal of the German Cardiac Society
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Heart failure is known to profoundly affect health-related quality of life (HRQoL). We aimed to describe both generic and disease-specific HRQoL in a large community-based sample of patients with systolic heart failure (SHF) and to identify important somatic and psychosocial correlates. ⋯ Patients with SHF suffer from severe limitations of HRQoL. Depression was the most important correlate of both generic and disease-specific HRQoL.
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Multicenter Study
The predictive value of the exercise ECG for major adverse cardiac events in patients who presented with chest pain in the emergency department.
To improve early diagnostic and therapeutic decision making, we designed the HEART score for chest pain patients in the emergency department (ED). HEART is an acronym of its components: History, ECG, Age, Risk factors and Troponin. Currently, many chest pain patients undergo exercise testing on the consecutive days after presentation. However, it may be questioned how much diagnostic value the exercise ECG adds when the HEART score is already known. ⋯ In a chest pain population risk stratified with HEART, exercise testing has only a modest contribution to clinical decision making. 50 % of all tests are non-conclusive, with high rates of false positive tests in all three risk groups. In intermediate-risk patients, negative exercise tests may contribute to the exclusion of disease. Clinicians should rather go for sensitive tests, in particular in patients with low HEART scores.