Racial/Ethnic Differences in Clinical Characteristics among Patients Hospitalized With Acute Decompensated Heart Failure

Background: Racial/Ethnic differences in clinical characteristics have been reported in patients with heart failure. We report these differences among hospitalized patients with acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF) to an urban medical center. Methods: We studied 789 patients consecutively hospitalized with ADHF to an urban medical center between Jan and Aug 2007. Variables analyzed included baseline clinical characteristics and admission lab findings. Chi-square test for categorical values and ttest for continuous variables were used to analyze the data. Results: The following variables were identified as significant differences between African Americans (AA) and non -AA: