Figure 1.

Patient selection process. Between May 2011 and March 2018, 1412 patients who were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at Nippon Medical School Chiba Hokusoh Hospital were screened. Of these, 12 patients who lacked serum albumin, lymphocyte counts, or total cholesterol measures were excluded. A further 41 for whom these measures were not obtained within 30 minutes of admission and 21 for whom the data of body weight were missed were also excluded, leaving 601 patients with acute heart failure (AHF) who were enrolled in the study. BMI, body mass index.