Systemic vasoconstriction and mortality in patients with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction: A cohort of patients who underwent non-invasive hemodynamic monitoring.

Advanced heart failure primarily manifests during and after hospitalization for decompensation. Identifying prognostic factors is crucial for distinguishing patients who may benefit from drug therapy from those with end-stage disease. This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic significance of systemic vasoconstriction in patients with decompensated heart failure with a reduced ejection fraction.

Multifaceted Strategy Based on Automated Text Messaging After a Recent Heart Failure Admission: The MESSAGE-HF Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Readmissions after an index heart failure (HF) hospitalization are a major contemporary health care problem.

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of an intensive telemonitoring strategy in the vulnerable period after an HF hospitalization.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This randomized clinical trial was conducted in 30 HF clinics in Brazil.

Sex Differences in Prognosis of Heart Failure Due to Ischemic and Nonischemic Cardiomyopathy.

Background: Limited research has explored sex-specific differences in death predictors of HF patients with ischemic (iCMP) and nonischemic (niCMP) cardiomyopathy. This study assessed sex differences in niCMP and iCMP prognosis.

Methods: We studied 7487 patients with HF between February 2017 and September 2020.

Sex Differences in Heart Failure Mortality with Preserved, Mildly Reduced and Reduced Ejection Fraction: A Retrospective, Single-Center, Large-Cohort Study.

Background: Heart failure (HF) is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Studies show that women have better survival rates than men despite higher hospitalizations. However, little is known about differences in mortality and predictors of death in women and men with HF with preserved (HFpEF), mildly reduced (HFmrEF), and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).

Sex Differences in Cardiovascular Disease Mortality in Brazil between 1996 and 2019.

Background: cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are Brazil's leading causes of death in women and men. This study analyzed age-adjusted death rate (DRaj) trends from all causes of death (ACD), CVD, ischemic heart disease (IHD), and stroke in women and men aged 35 to 74 years from 1996 to 2019.

Methods: We analyzed DRaj trends for all causes of death (ACD), CVD, IHD, and stroke.

The use of peripherally inserted central catheter reduced the incidence of phlebitis in heart failure patients: A randomized trial.

Background: During decompensated heart failure, the use of intravenous inotropes can be necessary. With peripheral venous access, prolonged inotrope infusion can cause phlebitis. However, traditional central venous catheters have possible complications.

Cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP), HDL capacity of receiving cholesterol and status of inflammatory cytokines in patients with severe heart failure.

Background: Heart failure (HF) courses with chronic inflammatory process and alterations in lipid metabolism may aggravate the disease. The aim was to test whether the severity of HF, using brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) as a marker, is associated with alterations in functional aspects of HDL, such as lipid transfer, cholesterol ester transfer protein (CETP) and lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) concentration.

Methods: Twenty-five HF patients in NYHA class I/II and 23 in class III/IV were enrolled.

Addressing Major Unmet Needs in Patients with Systolic Heart Failure: The Role of Ivabradine.

We reviewed clinical evidence for the use of ivabradine in systolic heart failure (HF), in which it appears to improve symptoms, improve quality of life, prevent hospitalization, and prolong survival, thereby addressing unmet needs in the management of HF. Ivabradine provides symptomatic benefits in HF on top of standard therapies, in terms of functional parameters and exercise capacity, and there is some evidence that this leads to improvements in quality of life in symptomatic HF patients, who may have dyspnea, altered exercise capacity, and fatigue. The SHIFT trial demonstrated that ivabradine has significant beneficial effects on major outcomes in HF.

Cardiac and Hemodynamic Benefits: Mode of Action of Ivabradine in Heart Failure.

Heart failure has seen a number of therapeutic advances in recent years. Despite this, heart failure is still related to increasing rates of morbidity, repeated hospitalizations, and mortality. Ivabradine is a recent treatment option for heart failure.

Most Heart Failure Patients Die from Pump Failure: Implications for Therapy.

Careful review of the literature of the last 20 years since the appearance of the first positive trials in heart failure indicates an evolution in the mode of death moving from sudden death to a predominance of pump failure death (i.e., death due to progression of heart failure).

Reverse Cardiac Remodeling: A Marker of Better Prognosis in Heart Failure.

In heart failure syndrome, myocardial dysfunction causes an increase in neurohormonal activity, which is an adaptive and compensatory mechanism in response to the reduction in cardiac output. Neurohormonal activity is initially stimulated in an attempt to maintain compensation; however, when it remains increased, it contributes to the intensification of clinical manifestations and myocardial damage. Cardiac remodeling comprises changes in ventricular volume as well as the thickness and shape of the myocardial wall.

Temporal variation in the prognosis and treatment of advanced heart failure - before and after 2000.

Background: The treatment of heart failure has evolved in recent decades suggesting that survival is increasing.

Objective: To verify whether there has been improvement in the survival of patients with advanced heart failure.

Methods: We retrospectively compared the treatment and follow-up data from two cohorts of patients with systolic heart failure admitted for compensation up to 2000 (n = 353) and after 2000 (n = 279).

Optimized treatment and heart rate reduction in chronic heart failure.

Background: Heart failure (HF) is a syndrome that leads to poor outcome in advanced forms. The neurohormonal blockade modifies this natural history; however, it is often suboptimal.

Objective: The aim of this study is to assess at what percentage cardiologists used to treating HF can prescribe target doses of drugs of proven efficacy.

IRON-HF study: a randomized trial to assess the effects of iron in heart failure patients with anemia.

Background: Anemia in heart failure patients and has been associated with increased morbi-mortality. Previous studies have treated anemia in heart failure patients with either erythropoietin alone or combination of erythropoietin and intravenous (i.v.

Efficacy and safety of two ramipril and hydrochlorothiazide fixed-dose combination formulations in adults with stage 1 or stage 2 arterial hypertension evaluated by using ABPM.

Background: Fixed-dose combinations of antihypertensive agents demonstrate advantages in terms of efficacy, tolerability, and treatment adherence.

Objective: This study was designed to compare the efficacy and safety of 2 ramipril and hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) fixed-dose combinations in patients with hypertension stage 1 or 2. Patients' blood pressure (BP) profiles were evaluated by using 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM).

Role of BNP levels on the prognosis of decompensated advanced heart failure.

Background: Heart failure (HF) is a condition with poor outcome, especially in advanced cases. Determination of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) levels is useful in the diagnosis of cardiac decompensation and has also been proving useful in the prognostic evaluation.

Objectives: To verify whether BNP levels are able to identify patients with a poorer outcome and whether it is an independent prognostic factor considering age, gender, cardiac and renal functions, as well as the cause of heart disease.

Mechanisms of blunted muscle vasodilation during peripheral chemoreceptor stimulation in heart failure patients.

We described recently that systemic hypoxia provokes vasoconstriction in heart failure (HF) patients. We hypothesized that either the exaggerated muscle sympathetic nerve activity and/or endothelial dysfunction mediate the blunted vasodilatation during hypoxia in HF patients. Twenty-seven HF patients and 23 age-matched controls were studied.

Relationship between depression, BNP levels and ventricular impairment in heart failure.

Background: Depression is a common comorbidity in heart failure (HF); however, the mechanisms related to a poorer outcome of depressed patients with HF remain unclear.

Objective: To evaluate the role of severe depression in the outcome of patients with decompensated HF.

Methods: A total of 43 patients with advanced HF, EF < 40.

Cardiac troponin T for risk stratification in decompensated chronic heart failure.

Background: The cardiac troponins are highly sensitive and specific markers of myocardial injury. They have been detected in heart failure (HF) and are associated with a bad prognosis.

Objective: To evaluate the association of cardiac troponin T (cTnT) and its ranges with prognosis in decompensated HF.