Background: The treatment of heart failure (HF) due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction has been defined in recent guidelines, but these guidelines are not always applied in routine clinical practice. One of the objectives of the ETICS study was to evaluate medical treatment at discharge and after 1 year in patients hospitalised for a first episode of congestive HF due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction in 2000.
Methods: One hundred and seventy nine patients (63% males, mean age of 69+/-13 years) with an ejection fraction < or = 40% were prospectively included.
Unlabelled: The epidemiology of cardiac failure (CF) is little known in France. Our work, integrated in the prospective ETICS (epidemiology and therapeutics of cardiac insufficiency in the Somme) study, was aimed at determining the incidence of hospitalisation, the epidemiological profile, the causes of CF, as well as the frequency of cardiac failure with preserved systolic function in the Somme.
Method: Patients hospitalised for a first attack of CF from January 1 to December 31, 2000 in one of the 11 medical establishments in the Somme were included.