Pharmacotherapy in chronic heart failure: a clinician's approach

ABSTRACT

Congestive heart failure is a common clinical syndrome and associated with a variable prognosis, depending on the severity of heart failure. In patients with moderately severe heart failure, one-year survival is approximately 20% after the diagnosis has been established .However, in patients with severe heart failure [New York Heart Association [NYHA] class IV], the mortality at one year with conventional treatment approaches 50%. Thus, therapeutic objectives for management of heart failure should not only to be directed for relief of symptoms of heart failure and to improve the prognosis of patients with established heart failure but also to prevent development of heart failure