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Management of chronic heart failure: Role of home echocardiography in monitoring care programs.

AIM
To identify a possible role of home echocardiography for monitoring chronic heart failure (CHF) patients.


METHODS
We prospectively investigated 118 patients hospitalized during the last year for CHF who could not easily reach the pertaining District Healthcare Center. The patients were followed up with 2 home management programs: one including clinical and electrocardiographic evaluations and also periodic home echocardiographic examinations (group A), the other including clinical and electrocardiographic evaluations only (group B).


RESULTS
At the end of the 18-mo follow-up no signi-ficant differences were observed between the 2 groups as regards the primary endpoint: rehospitalization occurred in 4 patients of the group A and in 6 patients of the group B; major cardiovascular events occurred in 2 and in 3 patients, respectively. No significant differences were observed with respect to the secondary endpoints: one vascular event appeared in both the groups, 3 cardiovascular deaths occurred in group A and 2 in group B. No significant differences were observed between the 2 groups as regards the composite endpoint of death plus hospitalization.


CONCLUSION
Home echocardiography for monitoring of CHF patients does not improve the cardiovascular endpoints. In our CHF patients, a low incidence of vascular events was observed.