RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Hypoalbuminemia has now emerged as a powerful prognosticator in heart failure regardless of age, clinical presentation, left ventricular ejection fraction and usual prognostic markers. Growing evidence is that this prognostic value persists after adjusting for causative factors for hypoalbuminemia such as malnutrition, inflammation and liver dysfunction. OBJECTIVE: To address the prognostic relevance of hypoalbuminemia in frail elderly patients with well-characterized cardiogenic pulmonary edema at high risk for adverse outcome, beyond causative factors for low serum albumin levels. Serum albumin was measured after clinical stabilization to avoid hypervolemia. RESULTS: In all, 67 patients with a mean age of 86 years were included. Hospital mortality was 30%. Patients who died and who survived were similar in age, ejection fraction, BNP concentration, serum creatinine, serum hemoglobin, total bilirubin and prealbumin. Patients who died had lower serum albumin levels (P<0.001), higher blood urea nitrogen (P=0.03) and higher C-reactive protein (P=0.02). In multivariate analysis, serum albumin was the sole independent predictor of hospital death (P<0.01), after adjusting for malnutrition (prealbumin P=ns), inflammation (C-reactive protein P=ns) and liver dysfunction (total bilirubin P=ns). CONCLUSION: Serum albumin is a powerful prognosticator in frail elderly patients with acute cardiogenic pulmonary edema even after adjusting for main causative factors. These results suggest that hypoalbuminemia may contribute to the worsening of heart failure given the physiological properties of serum albumin that includes antioxidant activity and plasma colloid osmotic pressure action. Further studies are critically needed to address the relevance of prevention and correction of hypoalbuminemia in heart failure.
