Heart failure (HF) is associated with pathological activation of arginine vasopressin, measured in plasma by the pre-hormone fragment copeptin. We hypothesised that copeptin is elevated and associated with worse prognosis in HF, and that left ventricular assist device (LVAD) therapy and heart transplantation (HTx) are associated with lower levels of copeptin.

We measured copeptin in groups of 49 patients with advanced HF, 13 patients one year post-LVAD and 22 patients one year post-HTx and correlated with clinical data and cardiac output. In HF we also assessed the prognostic role of copeptin with Kaplan-Meier analysis and multivariate Cox regression.

In HF, median (interquartile range) copeptin was 28 (18-45) pmol/L, after LVAD 16 (6-27) pmol/L, and after HTx 12 (5-20) pmol/L (p overall <0.001). In HF, copeptin was an independent predictor of death, LVAD or HTx (hazard ratio for log copeptin, 3.28 [95% confidence interval: 1.66-6.50], p=0.001).

Copeptin was elevated in, and independently predicted prognosis in, HF. Copeptin was progressively lower after LVAD and HTx. This suggests that improvement in cardiac output with LVAD and HTx may induce progressively reduced activation of vasopressin, which may be a marker for the beneficial effects of LVAD and HTx.