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Outcome Studies with Device Therapy in Patients with Heart Failure
Author(s) -
CLELAND JOHN G.F.,
THACKRAY SIMON,
GOODGE LYNDSEY,
KAYE GERRY,
COOKLIN MICHAEL
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of cardiovascular electrophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.193
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1540-8167
pISSN - 1045-3873
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-8167.2002.tb01958.x
Subject(s) - medicine , cardiac resynchronization therapy , heart failure , intensive care medicine , ventricular fibrillation , cardiology , sudden cardiac death , ventricular tachycardia , medical therapy , clinical trial , ejection fraction
Device Therapy for Heart Failure. Heart failure is a common debilitating condition for which pharmacologic therapy thus far has provided only partial relief. Despite, and sometimes because of, medical therapy, the overall prognosis remains poor, with high rates of sudden death and death from progressive heart failure. Device‐based therapies offer considerable promise for relief of symptoms and for improving prognosis. It is clear that implantable defibrillators should be considered for patients with heart failure who have been resuscitated from ventricular fibrillation or sustained ventricular tachycardia. Several large studies currently are investigating the effects of implantable defibrillators on total mortality in patients with major left ventricular systolic dysfunction but without other risk factors for sudden death. Cardiac resynchronization is a promising new therapy that may relieve the symptoms of heart failure in appropriately selected patients resistant to optimal pharmacologic therapy. Two large trials (CARE‐HF and COMPANION) currently are investigating the effects of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) on morbidity and mortality. It is important that those involved in these trials enroll patients quickly and minimize device implantation into patients who have not been assigned this therapy (cross‐overs). Overenthusiasm for the benefits that doctors believe devices might bring could destroy the future basis for our clinical practice, denying future generations of patients and the doctors themselves access to what they believe to be effective treatments.