Methods for the identification of patients at risk for heart failure

A method of predicting clinical outcome of patients suffering from congestive heart failure comprising:

• a) obtaining a sample of peripheral white blood cells from a patient;
• and
• b) determining whether peripheral white blood cells from said patient have a nonsense mutation in the second coding exon of an adenosine monophosphate deaminase 1 gene wherein the presence of the mutant allele is predictive of clinical outcome in said patient.