Update on therapy for acute and chronic heart failure for family physicians Applying advances in outpatient management

Heart failure is a clinical syndrome characterised by an inability to provide sufficient cardiac output to meet tissue demands at normal ventricular filling pressures (1). The syndrome is a significant health issue in the United States, where almost 5 million people have received the diagnosis of heart failure and about a half million new cases are diagnosed annually. According to estimates, nearly a half billion dollars are spent on drugs for treatment of heart failure every year in the United States (2).