H2FPEF Scores Are Increased in Patients with NASH Cirrhosis and Are Associated with Post-liver Transplant Heart Failure

Patients with cirrhosis are at risk for cardiac complications such as heart failure, particularly heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) due to left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD). The H2FPEF score is a predictive model used to identify patients with HFpEF. Our primary aim was to assess the H2FPEF score in patients with cirrhosis and determine its potential to identify patients at risk for heart failure after liver transplant.

This was a cohort study of patients undergoing liver transplant for cirrhosis from January 2010 and October 2018 who had a pre-transplant transthoracic echocardiogram.

166 cirrhosis subjects were included in the study. The majority were men (65%) and Caucasian (85%); NASH was the most common cause of cirrhosis (41%) followed by alcohol (34%). The median H2FPEF score was 2.0 (1.0–4.0). Patients with NASH cirrhosis had higher H2FPEF scores (3.22, 2.79–3.64) than those with alcohol induced cirrhosis (1.89, 1.5–2.29, p < 0.001) and other causes of cirrhosis (1.73, 1.28–2.18, p < 0.001). All subjects with a H2FPEF score > 6 had NASH cirrhosis. There was no association between the H2FPEF scores and measures of severity of liver disease (bilirubin, INR, or MELD score). Patients with heart failure after liver transplant had higher H2FPEF scores than those without heart failure (4.0, 3.1–4.9 vs. 2.3, 2.1–2.6, respectively; p = 0.015), but the score did not predict post-transplant mortality.

H2FPEF scores are higher in cirrhosis patients with NASH and appear to be associated with post-transplant heart failure, but not death.