title: Heart failure management in African Americans: meeting the challenge.
abstract: Heart failure affects 3% of African Americans. The etiology of disease and prognosis for these patients differs substantially from those for non-African Americans. A history of hypertension is associated with development of heart failure more often in African Americans than in non-African Americans and it also appears that target organ involvement is more severe in African Americans with hypertension than in other patient subgroups. Reviewing the results from large-scale clinical end point studies suggests that optimal treatment for heart failure in African Americans may differ from that of their non-African American counterparts. More importantly, concomitant use of beta blockers and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors may be as effective in African Americans as in non-African Americans. Utilizing angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors alone may not represent ideal therapy. Of the drugs studied, especially among the beta blockers, carvedilol may be the most effective to use for this population.
authors.affiliation: M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard No. 449, Houston, TX 77030-4009, USA. jdurand@mdanderson.org
authors.forename: Jean-Bernard
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Durand
mesh_terms: D000319:Adrenergic beta-Antagonists / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001741:Black or African American / Q000235:genetics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000806:Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D015995:Prevalence; D011379:Prognosis; D012307:Risk Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D000319:Adrenergic beta-Antagonists; D000806:Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors