Modern management of acute heart failure syndromes
1Division of Cardiology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Galter 10-240, 201 E. Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611, USA
2INSERM, Centre d'investigation clinique CIC-INSERM CHU, Hôpital Jeanne d'Arc, 54200 Dommartin les Toul, Nancy, France
3CHU, Département des Maladies Cardio-Vasculaires, Nancy, France
4Université Henri Poincaré, Nancy, France
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: m-gheorghiade{at}northwestern.edu
Heart failure is an important and growing public health problem throughout the developed world. Clinical interest has recently focused on acute heart failure syndromes (AHFS), which make a major contribution to the substantial financial and humanistic burden of disease. Despite the undoubted clinical importance of AHFS, no universally accepted definition of the condition exists and the first treatment guidelines remain to be published. The prognosis for patients with AHFS remains poor. Many acute therapeutic interventions are yet to be validated in randomized controlled trials, although recent years have seen a number of large-scale studies and the introduction of several new treatment options. In contrast to AHFS, substantial progress has been made in developing management strategies for chronic heart failure, although use of well-established life-saving therapies remains suboptimal. A brief introduction to the current key issues in AHFS, which are discussed in more detail in this supplement, is provided in this paper.
Key Words: Acute disease Congestive heart failure, classification/pathophysiology/mortality/therapy