Heart Failure and Cardiomyopathies

Abstract Heart failure is a clinical syndrome characterized by inability of the heart to maintain adequate cardiac output to meet the metabolic demands of the body while still maintaining normal or near-normal ventricular filling pressures. Heart failure may be present at rest, but often it is symptomatic only during exertion because of the dynamic nature of cardiac demands. For optimal treatment of heart failure, the mechanism, the underlying cause, and any reversible precipitating factors must be identified. Typical manifestations of heart failure are dyspnea and fatigue, limiting activity tolerance, and fluid retention leading to pulmonary or peripheral edema.