Background and aim: Heart failure (HF) has become a global health problem and is a significant burden for health-care systems worldwide. It is reported as the reason for 1–4% of all hospital admissions in developed countries. The prognosis in HF remains unfavourable. Having at our disposal a large group of patients with systolic HF at a high-volume reference cardiovascular centre with the possibility to implement complete diagnostics and therapy we decided to analyse the clinical data, administered therapies, and prognosis in HF patients.

Methods: The COMMIT-HF is a single-centre observational study that is underway in the Third Chair and Department of Cardiology of the Silesian Centre for Heart Diseases in Zabrze. The study population is a cohort of adult HF patients with left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) ≤ 35%. Patients with acute coronary syndromes are excluded from the analysis. Complete patient demographics: medical history, hospitalisation data (diagnostic and therapeutic), and in-hospital results are collected. Twelve-month follow-up is based on the information acquired from the national health-care provider.

Results: As of 31 December 2013 a group of 1798 patients have been enrolled (mean age 60.9 ± 12.8 years, 20.3% of subjects female, mean LVEF 26.06 ± 6.09, ischaemic aetiology 64.5%, atrial fibrillation 33.2%, diabetes mellitus 41.2%, chronic kidney disease stage ≥ III 29%). A significant proportion of patients underwent invasive procedures (ICD/CRT-D implantation 61.1%, coronary angiography 56.2%, PCI 19.6%, CABG 5.1%, heart transplantation qualification 5.5%, IABP 2.5%). All-cause 12-month morality was 12.5%. HF-related rehospitalisation rate was 28.9%.

Conclusions: The COMMIT-HF study will provide valuable information on the HF patient population. Initial analyses show that in this difficult patient population satisfactory long-term results can be achieved.