Selective treatment for heart failure: the future beckons?
Myocardial failure results from a variety of insults yet treatments have been given in a nonselective way. The benefits of treatments on symptoms are not related to etiology, but there is increasing evidence that prognosis is. Whenever the prognostic benefits of treatments have been classified according to etiology, patients with myocardial damage without concomitant ischemic heart disease fare better. In this paper, we present and evaluate the data on prognosis and discuss the possible reasons behind these differences. These differences are important because they will help to inform patients and physicians about prognosis based on the underlying cause of myocardial damage. In the future, treatment may be more successful if it is targeted to patients according to the cause of heart failure.
Department of Cardiology, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
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