Reviews

The ABCs of managing systolic heart failure: Past, present, and future
Digitalis, diuretics, and bedrest have given way to neurohormonal blockade and physical rehabilitation.
Lee Rodney Haselhuhn, MD
Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Daniel J. Brotman, MD
Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Ilan Shor Wittstein, MD
Departments of Medicine and Cardiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Address: Lee Rodney Haselhuhn, MD, Division of General Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins Hospitalist Program, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 600 N. Wolfe St., Meyer 8-134M, Baltimore, MD 21287; lhaselh1@jhmi.edu
Dr. Brotman has disclosed consulting for Portola Pharmaceuticals.
Release date: February 1, 2019
Expiration date: January 31, 2020
Estimated time of completion: 1 hour
The 2017 focused update of the 2013 ACC/AHA guideline on heart failure contains new and important recommendations on prevention, novel biomarker uses, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), and comorbidities such as hypertension, iron deficiency, and sleep-disordered breathing. Potential implications for management of acute decompensated heart failure will also be explored.
In 2017, the American College of Cardiology (ACC), American Heart Association (AHA), and Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA) jointly released a focused update1 of the 2013 ACC/AHA guideline for managing heart failure.2 This is the second focused update of the 2013 guidelines; the first update,3 in 2016, covered 2 new drugs (sacubitril-valsartan and ivabradine) for chronic stage C heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).
Rather than focus on new medication classes, this second update provides recommendations regarding:
These guidelines and the data that underlie them are explored below. We also discuss potential applications to the management of hospitalization for acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF).
Heart failure—defined by the ACC/AHA as the complex clinical syndrome that results from any structural or functional impairment of ventricular filling or ejection of blood—remains one of the most common, costly, and debilitating diseases in the United States.2 Based on National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data from 2011 to 2014, an estimated 6.5 million US adults have it, with projections of more than 8 million by 2030.4,5 More than 960,000 new cases are thought to occur annually, with a lifetime risk of developing it of roughly 20% to 45%.6
Despite ever-growing familiarity and some significant strides in management, the death rate in this syndrome is substantial. After admissions for heart failure (which number 1 million per year), the mortality rate is roughly 10% at 1 year and 40% at 5 years.6 Also staggering are the associated costs, with $30.7 billion attributed to heart failure in 2012 and a projected $69.7 billion annually by 2030.5 Thus, we must direct efforts not only to treatment, but also to prevention.
Preventive efforts would target patients with ACC/AHA stage A heart failure—those at high risk for developing but currently without evidence of structural heart disease or heart failure symptoms (Table 1).7 This group may represent up to one-third of the US adult population, or 75 million people, when including the well-recognized risk factors of coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and chronic kidney disease in those without left ventricular dysfunction or heart failure.8
Past ACC/AHA heart failure guidelines2 have included recommendations on the use of biomarkers to aid in diagnosis and prognosis and, to a lesser degree, to guide treatment of heart failure. Largely based on 2 trials (see below), the 2017 guidelines go further, issuing a recommendation on the use of natriuretic peptide biomarkers in a screening strategy to prompt early intervention and prevent the progression to clinical heart failure in high-risk patients (stage A heart failure).
The NT-proBNP Selected Prevention of Cardiac Events in a Population of Diabetic Patients Without a History of Cardiac Disease (PONTIAC) trial9 randomized 300 outpatients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and an elevated N-terminal proBNP (NT-proBNP) level (> 125 pg/mL) to standard medical care vs standard care plus intensive up-titration of renin-angiotensin system antagonists and beta-blockers in a cardiac clinic over 2 years.
Earlier studies10 had shown NT-proBNP levels to have predictive value for cardiac events in diabetic patients, while the neurohormonal treatments were thought to have an established record of preventing primary and secondary cardiovascular events. In PONTIAC, a significant reduction was seen in the primary end point of hospitalization or death due to cardiac disease (hazard ratio [HR] 0.351, P = .044), as well as in the secondary end point of hospitalization due to heart failure (P < .05), in the aggressive-intervention group. These results laid the foundation for the larger St. Vincent’s Screening to Prevent Heart Failure (STOP-HF) trial.11
Digitalis, diuretics, and bedrest have given way to neurohormonal blockade and physical rehabilitation.
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