BCN Bio-HF (approximate implementation): Explanation and context The BCN Bio-Heart Failure (BCN Bio-HF) risk calculator is a multimarker prognostic tool developed from a contemporary outpatient heart-failure cohort. It combines routine clinical variables (age, NYHA class, LVEF, sodium, eGFR, hemoglobin, loop diuretic dose, and evidence-based treatments such as beta-blocker/ACEI/ARB/statin) with up to three serum biomarkers — high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT), soluble ST2 (ST2), and NT-proBNP — to estimate individual probability of death at 1, 2 and 3 years and to compute life expectancy. The original derivation and internal validation found good discrimination (average C-statistic ~0.79) and showed that adding biomarkers improved prognostic performance significantly.
Limitations and implementation note: the definitive BCN Bio-HF prediction requires the published beta coefficients and cohort mean covariates from the paper’s supplementary tables to calculate exact probabilities. The code above uses the hazard ratios reported in the text (Model 8) and the baseline survivals at the mean covariates reported in Lupón et al. (PLoS ONE 2014) to produce an approximate estimate. For clinical-grade predictions, use the official BCN Bio-HF calculator (or the recalibrated coefficients published in European Journal of Heart Failure v3.0) and validate locally before deployment.
Reference:
Lupón J, de Antonio M, Vila J, Peñafiel J, Galán A, Zamora E, et al. Development of a novel heart failure risk tool: the Barcelona Bio-Heart Failure Risk Calculator (BCN Bio-HF Calculator). PLoS ONE. 2014;9(1):e85466. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0085466.
For updated/recalibrated coefficients and BCN v3.0 see: Codina P et al., Barcelona Bio-HF calculator version 3.0: recalibration and incorporation of SGLT2i treatment (Eur J Heart Fail, 2023).
Official BCN Biocalculator/disclaimer: ww2.bcnbiohfcalculator.org (BCN Bio-HF project pages).