BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Heart failure occurs frequently in end-stage renal disease patients. However, there are no prospective, longitudinal follow-up data on its prevalence, severity, and risk factors in long-term peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS A prospective observational study was conducted in 220 long-term PD patients followed up for 4 ye...

Numerous reports suggest that about one-third of patients with congestive heart failure do not have any abnormality of left ventricular systolic function. These patients presumably have heart failure on the basis of ventricular diastolic dysfunction. Our objective was to develop a comprehensive overview of published reports of the prevalence, clinical features and prognosis of diastolic heart f...

Systolic heart failure is characterized by ventricular dilation and reduced ejection fraction, and this syndrome may be either chronic or acute. Left ventricular remodeling is the principal cause of progression of systolic heart failure. Acute heart failure resulting from cardiomyopathy has similar functional and morphologic abnormalities. This review discusses remodeling, initial therapy based...

The patients were Olmstead County residents with incident or prevalent heart failure (inpatients or outpatients) prospectively recruited from 2003 to 2005. Approximately 80% of the patients had diastolic dysfunction. However, patients with a reduced ejection fraction had more moderate or severe diastolic dysfunction than patients with preserved ejection fraction (odds ratio, 1.67; 95% confidenc...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that gouty arthritis (gout) is a risk factor for incidence of heart failure and for echocardiographic measures signifying subclinical heart failure. DESIGN Post-hoc, longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses of a prospective cohort study where data were collected in 4-year intervals since 1971. SETTINGS The population-based Framingham Offspring Study. PART...

In clinical practice, approximately half of patients with heart failure have preserved left ventricular systolic function, with high morbidity and mortality rates, and major socio-economic burden derived from their management [2]. The majority of patients who present with heart failure and normal systolic function do not have a defined myocardial disease, but it has been demonstrated that they ...

Sleep apnoea, both central and obstructive disordered breathing, commonly occurs in patients with heart failure. Obstructive sleep apnoea occurs both in systolic and diastolic heart failure and is best treated with nasal positive airway pressure devices. Central sleep apnoea occurs primarily in systolic heart failure and therapeutic options are