SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL of the Hungarian Society of Cardiology

The year in cardiovascular medicine 2021: heart failure and cardiomyopathies

█ Current opinion

Authors:
Johann Bauersachs1*, Rudolf A. de Boer2, JoAnn Lindenfeld3 and Biykem Bozkurt4
1Department of Cardiology and Angiology, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Straße 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany;
2Department of Cardiology, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands;
3Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA; and
4Winters Center for Heart Failure, Cardiology, Baylor College of Medicine and Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston TX, USA

Summary

In the year 2021, the universal definition and classi­fication of heart failure (HF) was published that defines HF as a clinical syndrome with symptoms and/or signs caused by a cardiac abnormality and corroborated by elevated natriuretic peptide levels or objective evidence of cardiogenic congestion. This definition and the classification of HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), mildly reduced, and HF with pre-served ejection fraction (HFpEF) is consistent with the 2021 ESC Guidelines on HF. Among several other new recommendations, these guidelines give a Class I indication for the use of the sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors dapagliflozin and empagliflozin in HFrEF patients. As the first evidence-based treatment for HFpEF, in the EMPEROR-Preserved trial, empagliflozin reduced the composite endpoint of cardiovascular death and HF hospitalizations. Several reports in 2021 have provided novel and detailed analyses of device and medical therapy in HF, especially regarding sacubitril/valsartan, SGLT2 inhibitors, mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists, ferric carboxymal-tose, soluble guanylate cyclase activators, and cardiac myosin activators. In patients hospitalized with COVID-19, acute HF and myocardial injury is quite frequent, whereas myocarditis and long-term damage to the heart are rather uncommon.

ISSUE: CARDIOLOGIA HUNGARICA | 2022 | VOLUME 52, ISSUE 2

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