Serum calcium levels and clinical outcomes in acute heart failure

Introduction: Serum calcium concentration has a pivotal role in car-diac function. In literature there aren’t major studies that investigateassociation of serum calcium levels and clinical outcomes in acuteheart failure.Methods:216consecutive patients admitted in our Internal MedicineDepartment were retrospectively enrolled. In-hospital mortality wascollected as binary variables. BNP and days of hospitalization weretreated as continuous data. Serum calcium levels were synthesizedas an ordinal variable ranging from <2 SD from the mean to >2 SDfrom the mean.Results:Mean age was 80years (±12,55years), with M:F ratio of 1:1(males 52.7%). BNP levels had a mean of 1149,36ng/ml(±1193,44ng/ml). 13,4% of sample died during the admission. Meandays of hospitalization was of 12,65days (±8,28days). In the binary logistic model, corrected for all the above-mentioned covariates, cal-cium behaved as an independent risk factor. In the complete model,in-hospital mortality risk increased with the increase of serum calciumlevels In particular, every one-class increase in the ordinal variablerepresenting serum calcium levels was associated to a significant riskincrease of in-hospital mortality (OR:0,272; 95%CI:0,107-0,690;p<0,05). Cox regression confirmed that, at the mean of the same co-variates, lower serum calcium levels were associated to a lower risk ofin-hospital mortality and shorter in-hospital stay (OR:0,392;95%CI:0,177-0,870; p<0,05).Conclusions: High Serum calcium levels are associated to higher riskof in-hospital mortality and longer in-hospital stay.