Today there are so many evidence-based drug therapies for heart failure (HF) with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) that physicians treating HF patients almost don't know what to do them.
It's an exciting new age that way, but to many vexingly unclear how best to merge the shiny new options with mainstay regimens based on time-honored renin-angiotensin system (RAS) inhibitors and beta blockers.
To impart some clarity, the authors of a new HF guideline document recently took center stage at the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC-HFA) annual meeting to preview their updated recommendations, with novel twists based on recent major trials, for the new age of HF pharmacotherapeutics.
The guideline committee considered the evidence base that existed "up until the end of March of this year," Theresa A. McDonagh, MD, King's College London, said during the presentation. The document "is now finalized, it's with the publishers, and it will be presented in full with simultaneous publication at the ESC meeting" that starts August 27.
It describes a game plan, already followed by some clinicians in practice without official guidance, for initiating drugs from each of four classes in virtually all patients with HFrEF.
New Indicated Drugs, New Perspective for HFrEF
Three of the drug categories are old acquaintances.
