Succinct review of heart failure

Fast facts: heart failure

Dariusz Korczyk, Thomas H Marwick, Gerry Kaye. Oxford, UK: Health Press, 2012 (140pp, $25.00). ISBN 9781908541284.

THIS PUBLICATION is a first edition on heart failure but Health Press has published other titles in the Fast facts series on various other medical conditions. This book sets out to provide a succinct review of heart failure syndromes, their definition, epidemiology, diagnosis and management. It is written by Australian authors and is aimed at health care professionals to provide an overview and approach to diagnosis and management of patients with heart failure — in a highly readable form.

The chapters are well set out, with key take-home messages highlighted. The first of the 10 chapters highlights the difficulties in nomenclature and types of heart failure but, importantly, also provides epidemiological data to highlight current and future health burden.

The subsequent three chapters summarise pathophysiological and causal mechanisms of heart failure before discussing the role of comorbidities and their effect on the condition.

The next chapter covers the clinical and investigative aids to diagnosis.

The following three chapters are devoted to management of patients with heart failure. The first relates to general lifestyle measures before embarking upon an excellent summary of clinical trials in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, while acknowledging the paucity of positive clinical trials and therefore treatment options in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. The next chapter provides a summary of the role of device-based therapies — from biventricular pacemakers/defibrillators to cardiac surgical techniques, including the spectrum from ventricular assist devices and cardiac transplantation to novel surgical techniques.

The final two chapters are devoted to assessing prognosis and future directions of research and clinical trials.

Overall this book fills a gap by providing a review of current diagnosis and management of heart failure in a concise, easily readable format and therefore is likely to be of use to general practitioners, medical students and junior medical staff, along with allied health and nursing staff who participate in the care of patients with heart failure.