Abstract 18113: Persistent High Blood Urea Nitrogen Level is Associated With Increased Cardiovascular Mortality in Acute Heart Failure Patients

Introduction: Recent clinical trials and observations demonstrated in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) that high blood urea nitrogen (BUN) on admission was associated with poor cardiovascular outcomes. However, the impact of baseline values and changes in BUN level during hospitalization on long-term prognosis in CHF patients has not been fully evaluated. MethodS and Results: This study initially included 403 consecutive patients without regular hemodialysis who were urgently hospitalized due to worsening of CHF. After the exclusion of patients who died in hospital and patients without BUN data at discharge, total of 353 patients were divided into 4 subgroups depending on BUN at admission and discharge with cut-off of 21.0 mg/dL, referring to previous reports. Among 206 patients with high baseline BUN, 46 (22%) had normal BUN and 160 (78%) had persistent high BUN at discharge. In contrast, of 147 patients with normal baseline BUN, 55 patients (37%) had high BUN and 92 patients (63%) had normal...