Patients with heart failure need specialist care

New research from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden shows that patients with heart failure have high mortality and often are under-treated. According to a study many more of these patients would benefit from advanced treatment by heart specialists – something that could be decided by a simple evaluation of five common risk factors for early death due to heart failure.
Heart failure affects 2-3% of the overall population and over 10% of the elderly worldwide, and is associated with high risk for early death and reduced quality of life. Drug therapy improves symptoms and reduces mortality and is well used. However, modern heart failure pacemakers, heart pumps and also heart transplantation are of great benefit in selected patients, but are poorly utilised. Earlier studies have shown that, a major reason is that heart failure patients are generally cared for by generalist doctors with limited awareness of these treatments.
In the present study, a team comprising researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Link