Heart failure at the crossroads: moving beyond blaming stakeholders to targeting the heart

Unlike myocardial infarction, improvement in outcomes for patients with heart failure (HF) by comparison has lagged behind. Despite the discovery of effective therapies for HF and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) in the chronic setting, these patients remain at high risk. The mortality risk for patients with HF and preserved EF (HFpEF), or for patients hospitalized for HF irrespective of EF, remains remarkably high,1 and no approved therapies exist so far for either of these two groups of patients. Many efforts over the last two decades to improve outcomes for HF patients, especially in the latter two subgroups, have failed, leading to considerable contemplation by the scientific community.1–4 This viewpoint summarizes the overarching positions from the meeting ‘Heart Failure at Crossroads’ held in Bergamo, Italy on 27–29 November 2014 sponsored by the Clinical Research Foundation of Bergamo Hospital and endorsed by the Italian Federation of Cardiology.

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