Updates in heart failure: what last year brought to us

Heart failure (HF) is common, and HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) has become its most frequent clinical presentation because of ageing of the population and decreasing prevalence of coronary artery disease (CAD). An analysis of all studies using echocardiography to estimate the prevalence of cardiac dysfunction in subjects aged ≥60 years showed a median prevalence of 36.0% (range 15.8–52.8%) and 5.5% (range 3.3–9.2%) for ‘isolated’ left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction and LV systolic dysfunction, respectively, and a median prevalence of 4.9% (range 3.8–7.4%) and 3.3% (range 2.4–5.8%) for symptomatic HFpEF and HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).