Objective To explore the serum levels of growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) in patients with acute exacerbation of chronic heart failure (CHF) and its correlation with other common indexes,to provide reference for its clinical diagnosis,treatment and prognosis.Methods Two hundred patients with acute exacerbation of CHF were selected as CHF group,and 100 matched healthy volunteers were selected as control group.Serum levels of GDF-15 and N-terminal pronatriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) were detected,and left ventricular end diastolic diameter (LVESD),left ventricular end diastolic diameter (LVEDD),and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) were measured by echocardiography within 2 hours after admitted to hospital,and after the symptoms improved of CHF group,and on health examination day of control group.Patients in CHF group were followed up to record CHF related adverse events.Correlations between GDF-15 and other indicators were analyzed by Spearman correlation analysis,and the clinical value of serum GDF-15 on diagnosing CHF was analyzed by the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) and the area under the curve (AUC).Results The serum levels of GDF-15 and NT-proBNP in each time-point of CHF group were all higher than those of control group (t =4.70 ～ 7.11,P ＜ 0.05 orP ＜ 0.01).The serum levels of GDF-15 and NT-proBNP had negative correlation with LVEF (r =-0.539,-0.572,P ＜ 0.01),and had positive correlation with LVESD,LVEDD,and NYHA cardiac functional grading (r =0.505 ～ 0.861,P ＜ 0.01).Serum GDF-15 had positive correlation with serum NT-proBNP (r =0.528,P ＜0.01).With the increase of serum GDF-15 level,CHF group's readmission (rate) and death (rate) were both increased (x2 =36.86,26.59,P ＜0.01).AUC of predicting readmission risk by serum GDF-15 was 0.822 (95％ CI:0.719 ～0.890,P ＜0.01),and the best predictive cutoff point was 2 876.30 ng/L (sensitivity was 91.86％,specificity was 73.27％).AUC of predicting mortality risk was 0.816 (95％ CI:0.715 ～ 0.885,P ＜ 0.01),and the best predictive cutoff point was 3 487.05 ng/L (sensitivity was 91.72％,specificity was 69.05％).Conclusions Serum GDF-15 level in patients with acute exacerbation of CHF is higher,decreases with symptoms improvement,has positive correlation with LVESD,LVEDD,and NYHA cardiac functional grading,and has negative correlation with LVEF,has higher sensitivity on predicting CHF-related adverse events,and the mechanism may be related to the activation of SMAD pathway.Therefore,it may be a promising biomarker for clinical diagnosis and prognosis of cardiovascular diseases.