Syracuse

Background: Sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors stimulate erythropoiesis, but the mechanisms and clinical relevance of the effect of SGLT2 inhibitors on systemic iron metabolism in patients with heart failure is not well understood.

Objectives: We sought to characterize a comprehensive suite of iron metabolism biomarkersparticularly the erythroblast signaling molecule, erythroferronein patients with heart failure before and after short-and long-term treatment with empagliflozin in patients with heart failure and a reduced or preserved ejection fraction.

We measured serum iron metabolism biomarkers at baseline, 12 and 52 weeks in 1139 patients who were treated with placebo or empagliflozin in the EMPEROR program, and we characterized the interrelationships of these biomarkers with clinical status and with the effect of empagliflozin on erythropoiesis and heart failure outcomes.