ArticleJournal of the American Heart Association2025
Venous Hematocrit: Caveats to Informing Blood Volume and Relative Risk in Chronic Heart Failure.
Article in Journal of the American Heart Association, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundVenous hematocrit (vHct) is commonly used to inform blood volume (BV) status and stratify cardiovascular risk. However, vHct defines a percentage of red blood cells (RBCs) to total BV; therefore, similar vHcts can reflect significantly different absolute BVs and RBC mass/plasma volume profiles. This analysis explores how quantitative measures of BV enhance vHct reliability as a biomarker in heart failure.
methodsA retrospective analysis was undertaken in 395 patients stratified by vHcts reflecting clinically heart failure-relevant cut points (35% and 40%). BV was quantitated by the indicator-dilution methodology using iodinated-131 labeled albumin. Kaplan-Meier analyses compared outcomes.
resultsQuantitative absolute BVs on average did not differ between vHct subgroups above or below cut points; however, the distribution of RBC mass and plasma volume profiles varied significantly. A normal BV profile was measured in approximately one third of cohort patients and BV hypervolemia in 58%, driven largely by plasma volume expansions (72% of cohort), all with similar distributions above and below cut points. In contrast, profiles of deficits in RBC mass (anemia) and excess (erythrocythemia) were more frequent below and above cut points, respectively, but not exclusively, with 14% of patients demonstrating contrasting RBC mass profiles. Kaplan-Meier analyses provided aggregate support for vHct to stratify heart failure-related outcomes but do not account for misclassified patients.
conclusionsVHcts lack capacity to discriminate absolute BVs or the variability in RBC mass and plasma volume profiles above or below cut points. Therefore, quantitative BV measurements are key to adding specificity to individual vHct values, which permits reliable identification of BV status, assignment of appropriate risk, and guidance in management.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.