A History of Systemic Hypertension and Incident Heart Failure Hospitalization in Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction and Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction

The associations of a history of hypertension with subsequent outcomes after acute myocardial infarction have not been examined in propensity-matched studies. Of the 6,632 patients with acute myocardial infarctions and left ventricular systolic dysfunction in the Eplerenone Post-Acute Myocardial Infarction Heart Failure Efficacy and Survival Study (EPHESUS), 4,407 had histories of hypertension. Propensity scores for a history of hypertension, estimated for each patient using 64 baseline characteristics, were used to match 1,990 pairs of patients with and without hypertension. Matched Cox regression models were used to estimate associations between hypertension and outcomes during a mean of 16 months of follow-up. Heart failure (HF) hospitalization occurred in 11.9% and 8.8% of patients, respectively, with and without hypertension (hazard ratio [HR] for hypertension vs no hypertension 1.36, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.10 to 1.68, p = 0.004). The association between a history of hypertension and HF hospitalization was significant only in patients without previous HF (n = 3,495, HR 1.48, 95% CI 1.18 to 1.84, p = 0.001), but not in those with previous HF (n = 485, HR 1.09, 95% CI 0.73 to 1.62, p = 0.688, p for interaction = 0.179). A history of hypertension was not associated with all-cause mortality (HR 1.02, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.22, p = 0.790) or cardiovascular hospitalization (HR 1.08, 95% CI 0.92 to 1.27, p = 0.339). In conclusion, a history of hypertension was associated with subsequent HF hospitalization after acute myocardial infarction, especially in patients without histories of HF, suggesting that hypertension increased the risk for hospitalization with incident HF but did not affect hospitalization for worsening HF symptoms in those with prevalent HF.