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
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