Background:

Classically, heart failure has been classified in two groups, depending on a preserved or reduced ejection fraction, but a mid-range ejection fraction group has been introduced recently, and there is still great ignorance about its physiopathological and clinical characteristics.

Objective:

To characterize this group of patients as for their sociodemographic, clinical and treatment variables.

Method:

We carried out a descriptive, retrospective study, by analyzing medical records from patients hospitalized with acute heart failure between January 2015 and December 2017.

Results:

We reviewed 1536 medical records of which 864 met the inclusion criteria. The mid-range ejection fraction group corresponded to 83 (9.6%) of patients, of which the majority were women (53%), with a median age of 77 years, coronary heart disease as the most frequent etiology (26.5%) and lack of adherence to medications as the main cause of decompensation (14.5%). The most frequently used drugs were betablockers and furosemide, both upon admission and discharge. Mortality was higher between patients with reduced ejection fraction (4.1%). Hospital stay, admission to and length of stay in an ICU, were similar between all groups regardless of ejection fraction.

Conclusions:

Our findings are similar to those described in previous international and national cohorts, and support the hypothesis of an intermediate phenotype with an etiology similar to that seen with a reduced ejection fraction.

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