Perfil clínico de pacientes con insuficiencia cardiaca en los servicios de Medicina Interna de un hospital terciario.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the clinical profile of patients with heart failure upon hospital admission. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Cross-sectional observational study of patients hospitalized in the Internal Medicine service of a tertiary hospital in Lima, Peru, with a diagnosis of heart failure from January 2022 to February 2023. RESULTS: One hundred and three patients were included, with an average age of 75.57 ± 12.79 years, 52% were women. Among the clinical characteristics, dyspnea (94.2%), pulmonary rales (74.2%), having 3 or more comorbidities (23.3%) stood out; the main decompensating factor was of infectious etiology (36.9%). A functional class III was found in 64.1% of cases; and left ventricular ejection fraction preserved in 48.5% of them. A significant relationship was found between advanced functional class and systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels at the lower limit with 30-day mortality (p = 0.01, 0.028 and 0.022, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: The clinical profile revealed that 80% of patients were over 60 years of age, with a predominance of the female sex, with dyspnea as the predominant symptom, a preserved left ventricular ejection fraction, advanced functional class and blood pressure levels in the lower limit of normality. These last two were the factors statistically associated with higher mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]