New ACC Guidance on Heart Failure With Preserved EF
The American College of Cardiology (ACC) has released an Expert Consensus Decision Pathway (ECDP) on the management of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF).
The 44-page document highlights the “critical need” to accurately diagnose HFpEF to permit timely implementation of evidence- and guideline-based therapies to improve patient outcomes.
Although the incidence of overall HF in the United States appears to be stable or declining, the incidence of HFpEF continues to rise in tandem with increasing age and burdens of obesity, sedentary lifestyle, and cardiometabolic disorders.
HFpEF now accounts for more than one half of HF cases but remains “under-recognized” in everyday clinical practice, says the writing group, led by Michelle Kittleson, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, Smidt Heart Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California.
HFpEF is a complex condition, often with multiple overlapping comorbidities, including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and sleep apnea; optimal management requires a multidisciplinary approach, the writing group says.
The ECDP on HFpEF lays out a structure for diagnosis, clinical decision-making, management of comorbidities, implementation of the latest guideline-directed medical therapy (pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic), and equitable delivery of care.
The document was published online April 19 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).
It aligns with and builds on recommendations from the 2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure.
“HFpEF is one of the most pressing diagnostic and therapeutic challenges in clinical medicine today given its increasing prevalence, under diagnosis, poor prognosis, limited therapeutic options, and substantial burden on the health care system worldwide,” write the authors of a companion scientific statement on HFpEF, also published in JACC.
Despite these challenges, the success of recent sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor trials has shown that HFpEF is treatable, Barry Borlaug, MD, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, and co-authors point out.
They note that “ongoing large-scale studies of HFpEF pathobiology, an increasing number of translational studies spanning the gap between the bedside and the bench, and numerous clinical trials of novel therapeutics in HFpEF offer a glimpse of hope toward a future of reduced prevalence, morbidity, and mortality associated with HFpEF, which would be a major advance for population health.”
J Am Coll Cardiol. Published online April 19, 2023. ECDP; Scientific statement
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