In a series of late-breaking trials being presented at the Asian Pacific Society of Cardiology’s (APSC) meeting in Singapore, research is surfacing about the realities of heart failure in Asian countries.

The APSC conference, taking place July 13 to 15, attracts more than 2,000 people from 40 countries, according to a statement.

In the ASIAN-HF registry1, a trial presented July 13, showed that heart failure patients in Asia are younger and have more comorbidities than people in western countries.

"The epidemic of cardiovascular disease is rising in Asia, and with this comes the growing realization that the disease phenotype may be different from that of other parts of the world. There are unique risk factors, genetics and public health issues which taken together mean that the findings of studies undertaken in the West may not automatically translate to Asian populations, "said Jack Tan, MD, the APSC Congress chair, in a statement. "All this makes it really important to have a platform for Asian cardiovascular research. We hope new opportunities to present research at an Asia centered meeting will encourage more researchers from our region to get involved in clinical trials and registries."

In another study led by Carolyn Lam, a professor at Duke-National University of Singapore, researchers examined clinical characteristics and outcomes of 5,276 patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), and 1,204 patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). The patients were recruited from 46 centers across 11 regions in Asia.

Results showed that among patients with HFrEF, they were on average 59.6 years old. For patients with HFpEF, the mean age was 68 years old. About two-thirds of them had two or more comorbidities, which increased the odds of HFpEF by 50 percent.

"In our registry we are seeing that despite being much younger than patients in the rest of the world, Asian patients with heart failure have a high burden of co morbidities and risk factors, many of which are modifiable," Lam said in a statement. “The results show that we can't just extrapolate the characteristics and outcomes of Western patients with heart failure to Asians, and that even within Asia we can't extrapolate results from one region to another. As cardiologists we need to be conducting more heart failure trials in Asia."