(HealthDay)—A majority of older patients hospitalized for new-onset heart failure do not receive testing for coronary artery disease (CAD), according to a study published online March 24 in Circulation: Heart Failure to coincide with the virtual meeting of the American College of Cardiology together with the World Congress of Cardiology, held from March 28 to 30.

Kyle D. O’Connor, from the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, and colleagues examined testing for CAD in patients with new-onset heart failure using data from the Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure registry linked to Medicare claims. Patients were aged ≥65 years and hospitalized for new-onset heart failure from 2009 to 2015.

The researchers found that 39 percent of the 17,185 patients with new-onset heart failure received testing for CAD, including 23 percent during the index hospitalization. Patients who received testing for CAD were younger, more likely to be male, and more likely to have hyperlipidemia compared with those who did not, after multivariable adjustment. CAD testing differed by left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF): 53, 42, and 31 percent in heart failure with reduced EF (LVEF ≤40 percent), heart failure with borderline EF (LVEF 41 to 49 percent), and heart failure with preserved EF (LVEF ≥50 percent), respectively.

“The current study highlights an opportunity to test the impact of prospective interventions designed to improve the rates of testing for CAD in patients with heart failure and assess the potential impact on outcomes,” the authors write.

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