Recent Developments in Heart Failure.

Abstract

Recent Developments in Cardiovascular Research: The goal of “Recent Developments” is to provide a concise but comprehensive overview of new advances in cardiovascular research, which we hope will keep our readers abreast of recent scientific discoveries and facilitate discussion, interpretation, and integration of the findings. This will enable readers who are not experts in a particular field to grasp the significance and effect of work performed in other fields. It is our hope and expectation that these “Recent Development” articles will help readers to gain a broader awareness and a deeper understanding of the status of research across the vast landscape of cardiovascular research— The Editors . Despite significant advances in cardiovascular medicine during the late 20th century, heart failure (HF) remains a leading cause of death in the United States and much of the rest of the world. Although improvements in acute management of cardiovascular disease have reduced death rates, efforts to halt the inexorable deterioration are largely futile. The current clinical approach focuses on disease management rather than curing HF because there is presently no cure.1 Primary treatment consists of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, β-blockers, and mineralocorticoids antagonists. And, although a new class of agents (ie, neprilysin inhibitor) has shown promise in a phase 3 clinical trial,2 collectively, these drugs only delay disease progression and death caused by HF. Given the general stagnation in the progress of clinical treatment of HF, we must undertake more daring and high-risk preclinical studies to achieve the collective dream of curing HF. This developments will highlight some recent progress in understanding the pathobiology of HF and advances in conceptual approaches for future treatments. The goal is to focus the readers’ attention on some of the more exciting and daring areas of cardiovascular research, which will likely dictate advances in the 21st …