Practical approaches for the treatment of chronic heart failure: Frequently asked questions, overlooked points and controversial issues in current clinical practice

Çavuşoğlu, Yüksel; Altay, Hakan; Ekmekçi, Ahmet; Eren, Mehmet; Küçükoğlu, Mehmet Serdar; Nalbantgil, Sanem; Sarı, İbrahim; Selçuk, Timur; Temizhan, Ahmet; Ural, Dilek; Weinstein, Jean Marc; Yeşilbursa, Dilek; Yılmaz, Mehmet Birhan; Zoghi, Mehdi; Aydoğdu, Sinan; Kutlu, Merih; Özer, Necla; Şahin, Mahmut; Tokgözoğlu, Lale

doi:10.5152/AnatolJCardiol.2015.6767

Review

Practical approaches for the treatment of chronic heart failure: Frequently asked questions, overlooked points and controversial issues in current clinical practice

Yüksel Çavuşoğlu ¹ , Hakan Altay ² , Ahmet Ekmekçi ³ , Mehmet Eren ³ , Mehmet Serdar Küçükoğlu ⁴ , Sanem Nalbantgil ⁵ , İbrahim Sarı ⁶ , Timur Selçuk ⁷ , Ahmet Temizhan ⁷ , Dilek Ural ⁸ , Jean Marc Weinstein ⁹ , Dilek Yeşilbursa ¹⁰ , Mehmet Birhan Yılmaz ¹¹ , Mehdi Zoghi ⁵ , Sinan Aydoğdu ⁷ , Merih Kutlu ¹² , Necla Özer ¹³ , Mahmut Şahin ¹⁴ , Lale Tokgözoğlu ¹³

¹Department of Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Eskişehir-Turkey
²Department of Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, Başkent University, İstanbul-Turkey
³Department of Cardiology, Siyami Ersek Hospital, İstanbul-Turkey
⁴Department of Cardiology, İstanbul University, Cardiology Institute, İstanbul-Turkey
⁵Department of Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, Ege University, İzmir-Turkey
⁶Department of Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, Marmara University, İstanbul-Turkey
⁷Department of Cardiology, Ankara Türkiye Yüksek İhtisas Hospital, Ankara-Turkey
⁸Department of Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli-Turkey
⁹Department of Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, Ben Gurion University, Bersheva-Israel
¹⁰Department of Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, Uludağ University, Bursa-Turkey
¹¹Department of Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, Cumhuriyet University, Sivas-Turkey
¹²Department of Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, Karadeniz Teknik University, Trabzon-Turkey
¹³Department of Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, Hacettepe University, Ankara-Turkey
¹⁴Department of Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, 19 Mayıs University, Samsun-Turkey

Anatol J Cardiol 2015; (15): 1-60 PubMed ID: 26574641 DOI: 10.5152/AnatolJCardiol.2015.6767

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Abstract

Heart failure (HF) is a progressive disorder associated with impaired quality of life, high morbidity, mortality and frequent hospitalization and affects millions of people from all around the world. Despite further improvements in HF therapy, mortality and morbidity remains to be very high. The life-long treatment, frequent hospitalization, and sophisticated and very expensive device therapies for HF also leads a substantial economic burden on the health care system. Therefore, implementation of evidence-based guideline-recommended therapy is very important to overcome its worse clinical outcomes. However, HF therapy is a long process that has many drawbacks and sometimes HF guidelines cannot answers to every question which rises in everyday clinical practice. In this paper, commonly encountered questions, overlooked points, controversial issues, management strategies in grey zone and problems arising during follow up of a HF patient in real life clinical practice have been addressed in the form of expert opinions based on the available data in the literature

Keywords: algorithm, drugs, heart failure, strategies, therapy