Table 1.

Clinical and laboratory findings of patients recruited into the study on admission to hospital

Variables	Patients	Missing
Demographics
Age—years	77 (68–83)	0
Males	598 (61%)
Hosp. for heart failure in the previous year	581 (60%)
Prior myocardial infarction	220 (23%)
Prior coronary artery bypass graft	136 (14%)
Malignancy	108 (11%)
Diabetes	323 (33%)
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease	160 (16%)
ACS on admission for heart failure	101 (11%)
Systolic blood pressure—mmHg	129 (114–147)
Diastolic blood pressure—mmHg	74 (62–86)
Main presenting symptom
Breathlessness at rest	257 (26%)	0
Worsening breathlessness on exertion	529 (54%)
Breathlessness not a main presenting symptom	189 (19%)
Findings on electrocardiogram
Atrial fibrillation	460 (47%)	28
QRS duration—milliseconds	104 (91–136)
Heart rate—beats per minute	91 (73–112)
Left ventricular systolic dysfunction on echocardiography
None  Mild  Moderate  Severe	233 (25%) 125 (14%) 218 (24%) 335 (37%)	64
Blood tests
Sodium—mmol/L	137 (134–139)	0
Potassium—mmol/L	4.3 (4.0–4.7)	3
Urea—mmol/L	8.7 (6.2–13.0)	0
Creatinine—µmol/L	104 (82–144)	0
Troponin T—ng/ml	50 (29–148)	542
NT-proBNP—pg/ml	5047 (2337–10,945)	253
Haemoglobin—mmol/L	125 (110–139)	0
Chloride—mmol/L	101 (98–105)
Albumin—mmol/L	34 (31–37)	2

28 patients had missing electrocardiograms because they could not be found in the clinical notes, 64 patients had missing echocardiograms because they had died before the investigation could be performed and 3 serum potassiums were missing because the blood samples had haemolysed

QRS duration–duration of QRS complex on electrocardiogram

NT-proBNP N-terminal-pro brain natriuretic peptide

Continuous variables are displayed as median (interquartile range) and categorical variables are displayed as number (percentage)