The Role of HATCH Score in the Prediction of Ischemic Cerebrovascular Events in Patients with Heart Failure and Atrial Fibrillation

Abstract

The presence of both atrial fibrillation (AF) and heart failure (HF) increases the risk of an ischemic cerebrovascular event (CVE) by roughly fivefold. The HATCH score is a score used to predict new-onset AF. Although there are some differences, it contains risk factors similar to the CHA2DS2-VASc score. Our study aimed to investigate the relationship between the HATCH score and ischemic CVE. This retrospective study obtained data from 1719 HF patients between 2015 and 2022. About 673 patients with AF were included in the study. In the univariate and multivariate Cox regressions, we found that CHA2DS2-VASc and HATCH scores were independent predictors of ischemic CVE (p = 0.001 and < p = 0.001, respectively). The ROC analysis, AUC for the CHA2DS2-VASc score was 0.884 (95% CI 0.828-0.940, <p = 0.001). For the HATCH score, the AUC was 0.978 (95% CI 0.966-0.991, <p = 0.001). The HATCH score can be an independent predictor of the development of ischemic CVE in HF patients with AF.