Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a chronic, progressive disease that has detrimental consequences on a patient's quality of life (QoL). In part due to requirements for market access and licensing, the assessment of current and future treatments focuses on reducing mortality and hospitalizations. Few drugs are available principally for their symptomatic effect despite the fact that most patients' symptoms persist or worsen over time and an acceptance that the survival gains of modern therapies are mitigated by poorly controlled symptoms. Additional contributors to the failure to focus on symptoms could be the result of under-reporting of symptoms by patients and carers and a reliance on insensitive symptomatic categories in which patients frequently remain despite additional therapies. Hence, formal symptom assessment tools, such as questionnaires, can be useful prompts to encourage more fidelity and reproducibility in the assessment of symptoms. This scoping review explores for the first time the assessment options and management of common symptoms in CHF with a focus on patient-reported outcome tools. The integration of patient-reported outcomes for symptom assessment into the routine of a CHF clinic could improve the monitoring of disease progression and QoL, especially following changes in treatment or intervention with a targeted symptom approach expected to improve QoL and patient outcomes.

Iron deficiency (ID) occurs in about 50% of patients with heart failure (HF). The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) recommends ID diagnostic testing in newly diagnosed patients with HF and during follow-up, with intravenous iron supplementation (IS) only recommended in patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). This study aimed to assess prevalence, clinical characteristics, and application of ESC guidelines for ID and IS in patients with HF in the real-life clinical setting.

The aims of this study were to explore phenotypes of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and evaluate differential effects of spironolactone treatment.

Heart failure with mildly reduced ejection fraction (HFmrEF) has received increasing attention following the publication of the latest ESC guidelines in 2021. However, it remains unclear whether patients with HFmrEF could benefit from guideline-directed medical treatment (GDMT), referring the combination of ACEI/ARB/ARNI, β-blockers, and MRAs, which are recommended for those with reduced ejection fraction. This study explored the efficacy of GDMT in HFmrEF patients.

In the present study, we aimed to determine the relationship between therapeutic decisions during the treatment of acute heart failure (AHF) patients who develop acute kidney injury (AKI) and subsequent renal and clinical outcomes.

Patients with acute heart failure (AHF) are included into clinical trials regardless of differences in baseline clinical characteristics. The aim of this study was to assess patients with AHF according to the presence of central and/or peripheral congestion at hospital admission and evaluate treatment response and outcomes in studied phenotypes.

This study aimed to describe patient-reported symptoms and burden of treatment (BoT) experienced by patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). BoT describes the illness workload, individual capacity to perform that work, and resultant impact on the individual. Overwhelming BoT is related to poor quality of life and worse clinical outcomes. This research is the first to explore symptoms and BoT in people with CHF, in the UK.

The optimal strategy for diabetes control in patients with heart failure (HF) following myocardial infarction (MI) remains unknown. Metformin, a guideline-recommended therapy for patients with chronic HF and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), is associated with reduced mortality and HF hospitalizations. However, worse outcomes have been reported when used at the time of MI. We compared outcomes of patients with T2DM and HF of ischaemic aetiology according to antidiabetic treatment.

Intermittent levosimendan administration has been suggested to improve survival in patients with advanced heart failure (AdHF). Quality of life is a key issue for AdHF patients and is negatively affected by frequent hospitalizations.

In the coming decade, heart failure (HF) represents a major global healthcare challenge due to an ageing population and rising prevalence combined with scarcity of medical resources and increasing healthcare costs. A transitional care strategy within the period of clinical worsening of HF before hospitalization may offer a solution to prevent hospitalization. The outpatient treatment of worsening HF with intravenous or subcutaneous diuretics as an alternative strategy for hospitalization has been described in the literature.

This study was to determine the cost-effectiveness of dapagliflozin in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) patients in China from a perspective of health care payers.

Atrial septal shunt devices might improve hospitalizations and also prognosis in heart failure with increased pulmonary pressures due to left heart diseases. In recent years, atrial shunt devices have been used for the treatment of chronic heart failure, but there remains a lack of clinical experience. This study aimed to analyse the therapeutic effect of a novel type of atrial shunt on chronic heart failure.

The long-term effect of angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitor (ARNI) remains uncertain in patients who have experienced improvements in left ventricular (LV) systolic function or significant LV reverse remodelling following a certain period of treatment. It is also unclear how ARNI performs in patients who have not shown these improvements. This study aimed to assess the impact of prolonged ARNI use compared with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs)/angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) in patients with and without significant treatment response after 1 year of heart failure (HF) treatment.

High myocardial stiffness in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is attributed to comorbidity-induced structural and functional remodelling through inflammation and oxidative stress affecting coronary microvascular endothelial cells and cardiomyocytes, which augments interstitial fibrosis and cardiomyocyte stiffness. In murine and human HFpEF myocardium, sodium glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibition ameliorates cardiac microvascular endothelial cell and cardiomyocyte oxidative stress, while enhancing myocardial protein kinase G activity and lowering titin-based cardiomyocyte stiffness. Failure of previous HFpEF outcome trials refocuses attention to improving pathophysiological insight and trial design with better phenotyping of patients and matching of therapeutic targets to prevailing pathogenetic mechanisms. SGLT2 inhibition could represent a viable therapeutic option especially in HFpEF patients in whom high diastolic left ventricular (LV) stiffness is predominantly caused by elevated cardiomyocyte stiffness and associated endothelial dysfunction, whereas HFpEF patients with extensive myocardial fibrosis might be less responsive. This study aims to investigate a stratified treatment approach, using dapagliflozin in heart failure patients with preserved ejection fraction without evidence of significant myocardial fibrosis.

A retrospective nationwide observational analysis of diagnoses, procedures, and treatment reported to the Czech National Registry of Reimbursed Health Services between 2012 and 2018.

Outcomes reported for patients with hospitalization for acute heart failure (AHF) treatment vary worldwide. Ethnicity-associated characteristics may explain this observation. This observational study compares characteristics and 1-year outcomes of Kyrgyz and Swiss AHF patients against the background of European Society of Cardiology guidelines-based cardiovascular care established in both countries.

Survival benefit of percutaneous mitral valve repair with the MitraClip over conservative treatment of functional mitral regurgitation (MR) remains unclear. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to compare survival outcomes of MitraClip with those of medical therapy in patients with functional MR.

Iron deficiency is a major heart failure co-morbidity present in about 50% of patients with stable heart failure irrespective of the left ventricular function. Along with compromise of daily activities, it also increases patient morbidity and mortality, which is independent of anaemia. Several trials have established parenteral iron supplementation as an important complimentary therapy to improve patient well-being and physical performance. Intravenous iron preparations, in the first-line ferric carboxymaltose, demonstrated in previous clinical trials superior clinical effect in comparison with oral iron preparations, improving New York Heart Association functional class, 6 min walk test distance, peak oxygen consumption, and quality of life in patients with chronic heart failure. Beneficial effect of iron deficiency treatment on morbidity and mortality of heart failure patients is waiting for conformation in ongoing trials. Although the current guidelines for treatment of chronic and acute heart failure acknowledge importance of iron deficiency correction and recommend intravenous iron supplementation for its treatment, iron deficiency remains frequently undertreated and insufficiently diagnosed in setting of the chronic heart failure. This paper highlights the current state of the art in the pathophysiology of iron deficiency, associations with heart failure trajectory and outcome, and an overview of current guideline-suggested treatment options.

Acute dyspnoea is a common chief complaint in the emergency department and is mainly caused by cardiac and pulmonary underlying diagnoses. In patients with acute heart failure (AHF), an early initiation of adequate therapy is important to improve patient outcome. Clinical differentiation of pulmonary and cardiac underlying causes and of concomitant pathologies determines which therapeutic strategy is chosen. Procalcitonin is a marker of bacterial infection, which is markedly increased in AHF patients with concomitant bacterial infection and thus has the potential to guide the early initiation of adequate antibiotic therapy. The IMPACT-EU trial is a multicenter randomized controlled trial designed to test this hypothesis. This mini-review summarizes the current literature on procalcitonin in AHF and explains the design of the IMPACT-EU trial.

Conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy is still among the most effective treatment options for many types of cancer. However, cardiotoxicity, notably the decrease in left ventricular function under these regimens, can impair prognosis. Thus, prevention and treatment of cardiotoxicity are crucial. The present meta-analysis aims to assess the efficacy of beta-blockers or angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors/angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) for prevention of cardiotoxicity.