Incorporation of natriuretic peptides with clinical risk scores to predict heart failure among individuals with dysglycaemia

Aims To evaluate the performance of the WATCH-DM risk score, a clinical risk score for heart failure (HF), in patients with dysglycaemia and in combination with natriuretic peptides (NPs). Methods and results Adults with diabetes/pre-diabetes free of HF at baseline from four cohort studies (ARIC, CHS, FHS, and MESA) were included. The machine learning- [WATCH-DM(mI)] and integer-based [WATCH-DM(i)] scores were used to estimate the 5-year risk of incident HE Discrimination was assessed by Harrell's concordance index (C-index) and calibration by the Greenwood- Nam - D'Agostino (GND) statistic. Improvement in model performance with the addition of NP levels was assessed by C-index and continuous net reclassification improvement (NRI). Of the 8938 participants included, 3554 (39.8%) had diabetes and 432 (4.8%) developed HF within 5 years. The WATCH-DM(ml) and WATCH-DM(i) scores demonstrated high discrimination for predicting HF risk among individuals with dysglycaemia (C-indices = 0.80 and 0.71, respectively), with no evidence of miscalibration (GND P >= 0.10). The C-index of elevated NP levels alone for predicting incident HF among individuals with dysglycaemia was significantly higher among participants with low/intermediate (<13) vs. high (>= 13) WATCH-DM(i) scores [0.71 (95% confidence interval 0.68-0.74) vs. 0.64 (95% confidence interval 0.61-0.66)]. When NP levels were combined with the WATCH-DM(i) score, HF risk discrimination improvement and NRI varied across the spectrum of risk with greater improvement observed at low/intermediate risk [WATCH-DM(i) <13] vs. high risk [WATCH-DM(i) >= 13] (C-index = 0.73 vs. 0.71; NRI = 0.45 vs. 0.17). Conclusion The WATCH-DM risk score can accurately predict incident HF risk in community-based individuals with dysglycaemia. The addition of NP levels is associated with greater improvement in the HF risk prediction performance among individuals with low/intermediate risk than those with high risk.

Automated summary

The study found that the WATCH-DM risk score can accurately predict incident heart failure risk in patients with dysglycaemia, and the addition of natriuretic peptides can improve the prediction performance, especially in low to intermediate risk individuals.