Cardiac resynchronization: a cornerstone in the foundation of device therapy for heart failure.

Accepted goals of heart failure treatment include: 1) improvement in symptom status, 2) prevention of disease progression, and 3) reduction in morbidity and mortality (1). Complex pharmacologic therapies achieve these goals for many, but not all, patients with heart failure. For patients who remain symptomatic despite receiving “optimal” medical therapy, novel adjunctive therapies are needed. Technological advancements are permitting the exploration of the so-called device therapies for heart failure. One such device incorporates biventricular stimulation to resynchronize cardiac contraction. The study by Stellbrink et al. (2) in this issue of the Journal is consistent with other emerging data finding that chronic resynchronization therapy may achieve several treatment goals in heart failure including symptom reduction and slowing of heart failure progression (2–5).