Abstract Background:

Heart failure (HF) is a syndrome, whose advanced forms have a poor prognosis, which is aggravated by the presence of comorbidities.

Objective:

We assessed the impact of infection in patients with decompensated HF admitted to a tertiary university-affiliated hospital in the city of São Paulo.

Methods:

This study assessed 260 patients consecutively admitted to our unit because of decompensated HF. The presence of infection and other morbidities was assessed, as were in-hospital mortality and outcome after discharge. The chance of death was estimated by univariate logistic regression analysis of the variables studied. The significance level adopted was P < 0.05.

Results:

Of the patients studied, 54.2% were of the male sex, and the mean age ± SD was 66.1 ± 12.7 years. During hospitalization, 119 patients (45.8%) had infection: 88 (33.8%) being diagnosed with pulmonary infection and 39 patients (15.0%), with urinary infection. During hospitalization, 56 patients (21.5%) died, and, after discharge, 36 patients (17.6%). During hospitalization, 26.9% of the patients with infection died vs 17% of those without infection (p = 0.05). However, after discharge, mortality was lower in the group that had infection: 11.5% vs 22.2% (p = 0.046).

Conclusions:

Infection is a frequent morbidity among patients with HF admitted for compensation of the condition, and those with infection show higher in-hospital mortality. However, those patients who initially had infection and survived had a better outcome after discharge.