he practice of medicine today is founded primarily on the henotypic characteristics of diseases. The recognition of ommon forms of cardiomyopathies as hypertrophic, diated, restrictive, and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cariomyopathies typifies the phenotype-based approach to iseases. The approach clearly has had numerous positive mpacts on the diagnosis, prognostication, prevention, and rea...

BACKGROUND Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is common in heart failure patients. Literature on PH in heart failure is sparse in Nigeria. This study was carried out to determine the prevalence of PH in heart failure patients and ascertain the relationship between left ventricular systolic and diastolic function and the degree of PH. METHODS A total of 125 heart failure patients had echocardiography...

AIMS To determine the prevalence of heart failure and symptomatic as well as asymptomatic left ventricular systolic dysfunction in the general population. METHODS AND RESULTS In 5540 participants of the Rotterdam Study (age 68.9+/-8.7 years, 2251 men) aged 55-95 years, the presence of heart failure was determined by assessment of symptoms and signs (shortness of breath. ankle oedema and pulmo...

Hypertension is a risk factor for incident heart failure (HF). However, the effect of uncontrolled blood pressure (BP) on incident HF in older adults with hypertension has not been prospectively examined in propensity-matched studies. Of the 5795 Cardiovascular Health Study participants, > or =65 years, 2562 with self-reported physician-diagnosed hypertension had no baseline HF. Of these, 1391 ...

The human intellect has an almost irresistible urge to categorize and simplify. Thus, over the years, heart failure has been classified as forward or backward, right or left, compensated or decompensated. These distinctions, which were made primarily on the basis of data obtained from the history and physical examination, provided a conceptual framework for thinking about heart failure and for ...

BACKGROUND The utility of longitudinal, circumferential, and radial strain and strain rate in determining prognosis in chronic heart failure is not well established. METHODS AND RESULTS In 416 patients with chronic systolic heart failure, we performed speckle-tracking analyses of left ventricular longitudinal, circumferential, and radial strain and strain rate on archived echocardiography ima...

Arterial baroreflex control of muscle sympathetic nerve activity (ABRMSNA) is impaired in chronic systolic heart failure (CHF). The purpose of the study was to test the hypothesis that exercise training would improve the gain and reduce the time delay of ABRMSNA in CHF patients. Twenty-six CHF patients, New York Heart Association Functional Class II-III, EF ≤ 40%, peak V̇o2 ≤ 20 ml·kg(-1)·min(-1...

BACKGROUND The effect of peripheral arterial disease (PAD) on outcomes in patients with chronic heart failure (HF) has not been examined in propensity-matched studies. METHODS AND RESULTS Of the 2689 patients with advanced chronic systolic HF in the Beta-Blocker Evaluation of Survival Trial, 441 had a history of PAD. Propensity scores for a history of PAD, calculated for each patient using a ...

BACKGROUND The aim of this prospective study was to assess the diagnostic value of NT-proBNP and the concordance with Tissue Doppler Echocardiography (including strain and longitudinal displacement) in diastolic and systolic heart failure. METHODS AND RESULTS 137 consecutive clinically stable patients were included (42 healthy controls, 43 with diastolic heart failure, 52 with systolic heart ...