Clinical utility and validation of the Krakow DCM Risk Score – a prognostic model dedicated to dilated cardiomyopathy

Background: One of the most common causes of heart failure is dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). In DCM, the mortality risk is high and reaches approximately 20% in for 5 years. A patient’s prognosis should be established for appropriate HF management. However, so far, no validated tools have been available for the DCM population. Methods: The study population consisted of 735 DCM patients: 406 from the derivation cohort (previously described) and 329 from the validation cohort (from 2009-2020, with outcome data after a mean of 42 months). For each DCM patient, the individual mortality risk was calculated based on the Krakow DCM Risk Score. Results: During follow-up, 49 (15%) patients of the validation cohort died. They had shown significantly higher calculated 1-to-5-year mortality risks. The Krakow DCM Risk Score yielded good discrimination in terms of overall mortality risk, with an AUC of 0.704-0.765. Based on a 2-year mortality risk, patients were divided into non-high (≤6%) and high (>6%) mortality risk groups. The observed mortality rates were 8.3% (n=44) vs 42.6% (n=75), respectively (HR 3.37; 95%CI 1.88-6.05; p<0.0001). Conclusions: the Krakow DCM Risk Score was found to have good predictive accuracy. The 2-year mortality risk > 6% has good discrimination for the identification of high-risk patients and can be applied in everyday practice.