Heart Failure The Expert's Approach

Heart failure is a serious condition caused by the heart failing to pump enough blood around the body at the right pressure. It usually occurs because the heart muscle has become too weak or stiff to work properly, most commonly caused by heart attack, high blood pressure or cardiomyopathy (heart disease).

This book is a comprehensive guide to heart failure for clinicians. Divided into six sections, the book begins with emergency management, then discusses heart failure in both in-patient and out-patient hospital care. A complete chapter is dedicated to the role of biomarkers at different stages of heart failure.

Special issues such as diabetes management and heart failure, geographical variations, and chronic heart failure in geriatric patients, are discussed in depth. The final sections examine advanced heart failure and the diagnosis and management of cardiomyopathies.

Written by experienced authors from the University of California and the University of Athens, this manual includes more than 175 images and illustrations to enhance learning.

Key points

• Comprehensive guide to heart failure
• Covers role of biomarkers at different stages of heart failure
• Complete section dedicated to diagnosis and management of cardiomyopathies
• Experienced author team from USA and Greece

Section 1: The Emergency Department

• How to Evaluate Dyspnea in the Emergency Department
• Heart Failure Disposition: When to Admit, When to Observe, and When to Discharge Home
• The Treatment of Acute Heart Failure in the Emergency Department
• Management of Atrial Fibrillation in Patients with Heart Failure and Preserved and
• Low Ejection Fractions
• How to Use Natriuretic Peptides in the Emergency Department
• How to Use New Biomarkers in the Emergency Department
• The Role of Ultrasound in the Management of Acute Heart Failure
• Use of Bioelectrical Impedance Vector Analysis in the Dyspneic Patient
• Mechanical Ventilation in Acute Heart Failure: The Role of Noninvasive Ventilation
• Emergency Department Observation Unit: Management of Congestive Heart Failure
• When to Employ Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Cardiac Computed Tomography in the Evaluation of Heart Failure
• When to Discharge the Heart Failure Patient

Section 2: Heart Failure in the Hospital

• How to Use Natriuretic Peptides in the Inpatient Setting?
• Approaches to Diuretics in the Hospital
• Vasodilators in Acute Heart Failure
• When and How to Use Inotropes?
• New Cardiovascular Disease Biomarkers in Hospital Medicine: Neutrophil Gelatinase-associated Lipocalin
• Practical Approach to Hyponatremia in Heart Failure
• Heart Failure and Acute Coronary Syndrome
• The ABCs of Isolated Venovenous Ultrafiltration in Fluid-overloaded Heart Failure Patients
• Who Should Receive a Pulmonary Artery Catheter

Section 3: Chronic Heart Failure in the Outpatient Setting

• Outpatient Follow-up—What Should We Monitor
• Echocardiography: Getting It Right
• A Practical Guide for Reducing Readmissions in Heart Failure
• Initiation of Angiotensin-converting Enzyme Inhibitors and Beta Blockers in Heart Failure: Putting Evidence into Practice
• Mineralocorticoid Receptor Antagonists in Patients with Heart Failure and a Reduced Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction: How to Do It Right
• Atrial Fibrillation Done Right
• Ventricular Tachycardia Done Right
• Issues in Anticoagulation
• Management of the Patient with Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction
• Implantable Cardioverter-defibrillator and Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy in
• Heart Failure Patients: How to Choose the Right Device for the Right Patients
• Clinical Decision-making in the Outpatient Setting: The Use of Galectin-3
• Guiding Heart Failure Care with Natriuretic Peptides
• ST2: How to Really Do It Right
• Using Cardiac Troponin to Assist in the Management of Patients with Congestive Heart Failure—A Practical Guide
• Biomarkers on the Horizon for Chronic Heart Failure

Section 4: Special Issues in Heart Failure

• Sex Differences in Heart Failure: Implications for Clinical Practice
• Chronic Heart Failure in Geriatric Patients
• How to Diagnose and Treat Anemia in Patients with Heart Failure
• Diabetes Management in Heart Failure
• Heart Failure in Europe
• Heart Failure in Southeast Asia
• Heart Failure in India
• Heart Failure in India: Clinical Perspective
• Heart Failure in China
• Heart Failure from the US Veterans Health Administration Perspective: A Patient-centered Approach to Care
• Heart Failure in the Nursing Home Setting
• Heart Failure from the Nursing Perspective
• Developing Heart Failure Service in a Developing Nation: Borneo Malaysia Perspective

Section 5: Advanced Heart Failure

• Approach to the End-stage Heart Failure Patient
• Left Ventricular Assist Device Versus Transplantation: How to Decide
• Approach to Left Ventricular Assist Devices and Follow-up in Advanced Congestive Heart Failure
• How to Approach Palliative and End-of-life Care
• Percutaneous Mechanical Circulatory Support in Cardiogenic Shock

Section 6: Cardiomyopathies: Practical Recommendations to Diagnosis and Management

• New Onset Cardiomyopathy: Biopsy or MRI and Other Imaging Modalities
• Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
• Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy
• Myocarditis
• When is Genetic Testing Necessary?
• AIDS-induced Cardiac Abnormalities and Heart Failure
• Prohormone Levels in Heart Failure

Alan S Maisel MD
Professor of Medicine, Director, CCU and HF Program, Department of Medicine and Cardiology, VA Medical Centre, University of California, San Diego, California, USA

Gerasimos Filippatos MD FACC FCCP FESC
Department of Cardiology, Heart Failure Unit, University of Athens, Greece