Heart failure & cardiomyopathiesCohort study
Characterizing the heterogeneity of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: moving beyond subgroups and distinguishing disease from risk
- Prospective cohort study
- deeply phenotyped, multi-modal cohort
- external validation in UK Biobank
- sensitivity analyses
Authors' conclusion
HFpEF risk and disease course reflect a variable interplay of pathophysiological processes in each individual.
Study context
- Population
- Patients with HF and LVEF ≥ 50% (heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF))
- Participants
- 902 patients
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
HFpEF phenotypic heterogeneity (clustering and DDRTree tree structure)
- Conventional clustering did not identify meaningful subgroups
- DDRTree revealed a stable, interpretable tree structure capturing continuous variation in cardiac structure and function, biomarkers and comorbidities
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
HFpEF vs comorbidity-matched controls (n=902)
- A profile of cardiac and systemic characteristics distinguishing HFpEF from its associated comorbidities was identified
Original publication
Characterizing the heterogeneity of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: moving beyond subgroups and distinguishing disease from risk. Eur J Heart Fail. Published 5 March 2026. doi:10.1093/ejhf/xuag056
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it