Iron deficiency testing among people with incident heart failure in primary care

Background Given around 50% of people with heart failure have a degree of iron deficiency, guidelines recommend screening. It is uncertain to what extent this is done in primary care and whether testing is equitable.

Aim To report the proportion of people with incident heart failure who undergo a ferritin test within 12 months.

Design & setting Retrospective primary care cohort study using Clinical Practice Research Datalink Aurum data, between 2016 and 2021.

Method We report the proportion of adults with an incident diagnosis of heart failure who received a ferritin test within 12 months. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine the odds of testing based on key demographic covariates and co-morbidities.

Results Among 105 749 individuals with an incident diagnosis of heart failure (mean age 71.6 years, SD 14.3), only 35 688 (33.7%) received a ferritin test within the subsequent year. Increasing age (odds ratio 1.25 per 10-year increase, 95% CI: 1.24–1.27), female sex (male sex OR 0.86, 0.84–0.89) and Asian ethnicity (OR 1.70, 1.59–1.80) were all associated with increased odds of testing as were diagnoses of coeliac disease (OR 1.86, 1.58-2.21), type 1 diabetes (OR 1.82, 1.51-2.19) and cirrhosis (OR 1.64, 1.43-1.87). There was geographic variation in testing, even in adjusted analyses.

Conclusion In a large primary care dataset, two thirds of people with incident heart failure did not receive a ferritin test for iron deficiency within a year of diagnosis demonstrating a gap in current practice and an opportunity for improvements in service delivery.