Clonal haematopoiesis of indeterminate potential: associations with heart failure incidence, clinical parameters and biomarkers

Aim: We aimed to analyse the association of clonal haematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) with incident heart failure (HF) in a European population cohort.

Methods and results: From the prospective Prevention of Renal and Vascular End-stage Disease (PREVEND) cohort, we included all 374 participants with incident HF and selected 1:1 age- and sex-matched control subjects. Peripheral blood samples of 705 individuals were successfully analysed by error-corrected next generation sequencing for acquired mutations at a variant allele frequency ≥2% in 27 CHIP driver genes. The median age of the study population was 65 years (interquartile range 58–70) and 35.6% were female. CHIP mutations positively correlated with age, smoking, hypertension and cardiovascular biomarkers including N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide and mid-regional pro-A-type natriuretic peptide, but the frequency of CHIP was comparable in individuals with incident HF and in control participants (18.4% vs. 17.3%; p = 0.69). In multivariable Cox regression models, CHIP was not significantly associated with incident HF (hazard ratio [HR] 1.24, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.93–1.65; p = 0.144). This association, however, was modified by age (p for CHIP–age interaction = 0.002). Among people younger than 65 years, CHIP mutations were more frequently detected in the case cohort compared to the control cohort (14.2% vs. 5.8%; p = 0.009), and were significantly associated with new-onset HF (HR 2.07, 95% CI 1.30–3.29; p = 0.002).

Conclusion: Clonal haematopoiesis of indeterminate potential correlates with HF risk factors and biomarkers, and is associated with incident HF in subjects <65 years of age.