HF PREVALENCE study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Is Heart Failure Under-diagnosed?: Prospective, Clinical Guideline-based, Screening Study in Elderly Population to Determine Disease Prevalence
IRAS ID
363195
Contact name
Madhusudhan Varma
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 22 days
Research summary
Heart failure (HF) is a serious condition affecting the ability of the heart to pump blood around the body. One or both of the ventricles in the heart that are responsible for this job are malfunctioning in HF. Patient symptoms can include shortness of breath, tiredness, and fluid build-up in the legs and/or the lungs. Serious complications may develop, such as damage to other organs such as the kidneys, lung infections, stroke and cardiac arrest. Knowing whether someone has HF is useful because medications can be prescribed to slow down the progression of the disease. Various researchers have flagged up that the number of known HF cases is likely much lower than the actual number of patients who actually have HF; in other words, HF is likely under-diagnosed.
A sample of 584 patients without existing HF diagnosis, and not necessarily obvious symptoms of HF, will be screened for the presence of HF. This will be done in line with existing national clinical guidelines. The focus will be on two patient populations: a) those aged 60 years, and b) those aged 60 with an existing diagnosis of type II diabetes mellitus. More than 80% of HF patients fall into this age bracket, and diabetes is a known risk factor for developing HF. Apart from the risk of HF going up with age and a diagnosis of diabetes, these patients are also more likely to have other health conditions that can make the outlook worse (eg kidney disease, obesity, hypertension). An initial NT-proBNP (N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide) blood test will be done, measuring the degree of strain the heart is under. If the levels of NT-proBNP are above a certain pre-defined level, patients will undergo a non-invasive transthoracic echocardiogram (aka as an ‘echo’) to check if indeed the patients has HF. This approach will allow us to say with a degree of certainty if there is an issue with under-diagnosis of HF and – if so – how big this issue may be. Initial local analysis, and data from the scientific literature, indicates that there may be an issue. This project will determine if indeed it is the case.REC name
Wales REC 5
REC reference
25/WA/0361
Date of REC Opinion
9 Dec 2025
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion