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We sought to evaluate the association between the extent of coronary artery disease (CAD) and survival in patients with symptomatic heart failure (HF) and to create the most prognostically powerful clinical definition of ischemic cardiomyopathy.

An ischemic etiology of HF is known to be a predictor of adverse outcome; however, there is no uniform definition for ischemic cardiomyopathy.

We assessed the clinical history and coronary anatomy of patients with symptomatic HF and ejection fraction ≤40% undergoing diagnostic coronary angiography between 1986 and 1999 (n = 1,921). Five classification schemes were tested to identify the most prognostically powerful method for defining the extent of CAD and to develop the best definition of ischemic cardiomyopathy for prognostic purposes.

A more extensive CAD was independently associated with shorter survival. When the …