Correlation between Neutrophilia and Congestive Heart Failure Following Acute Myocardial Infarction

Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is one of the most common causes of admissions in industrialized countries and each year a lot of deaths occur due to this disease. AMI is commonly associated with leukocytosis and an elevated neutrophil count. It is not clear whether neutrophilia is a cause or effect of acute myocardial injury and heart failure. Nevertheless, proving such a correlation will have a lot of clinical utilities. From among 146 patients hospitalized by AMI diagnosis in the CCU ward of Shahid Madani hospital, 68 patients (having our inclusion criteria) took part in this cross-sectional and analytical study. The criteria for AMI were clinical symptoms, ECG criteria and paraclinical findings. CBCH1 was performed for the patients. All the patients were evaluated for presence or absence of congestive heart failure (CHF) in first 4 days of hospitalization. The data were analyzed with SPSS software using t-test and Chi-square. Mean neutrophil count was 11291 in patients with evidence of congestive heart failure (CHF) and 8440 in those without it (P =0.01). This difference was statistically significant. Among 23 patients with CHF, 16 had neutrophil counts >8500, but among 45 patients without CHF only 19 cases showed this value (Odds ratio=3.12, P=0.03). Also among 35 patients with neutrophil counts >8500, 24 patients had ejection fraction (EF) of less than 45% and 11 cases had EF>45%(P=0.015). In this study we found a direct correlation between neutrophilia on admission and the presence of CHF and echocardiographic left ventricular dysfunction in first 4 days of hospitalization. So the patients with high neutrophilia need more invasive treatments to reduce the possibility of CHF.