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New Targets in the Drug Treatment of Heart Failure

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Abstract

Heart failure is a complex syndrome that has been a major contributor to readmissions into hospitals in the USA. Currently, a large number of medications are being used to treat the symptoms of the disease—digoxin, diuretics, renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors, β-blockers, and vasodilators. There is no doubt that the given pharmaceutical therapy has been effective in lowering hospital readmission rates and prolonging life in individual chronic heart failure patients. Despite this, admission rates following heart failure hospitalization remain high, resulting in a substantial financial strain on healthcare institutions. Clearly, there is much room for improvement in heart failure therapy and management in reducing readmission rates. In this review, we address the unmet needs in the current drug treatment of chronic heart failure and describe novel drug targets that are currently under investigation.

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No funding was received in the writing of this review.

Conflicts of interest

Alan Maisel is currently a consultant for Spingotec and a speaker for Alere and Critical DX. He also conducts research for Novartis, Alere, Abbott, and Roche. James Iwaz, Elizabeth Lee, Hermineh Aramin, Danilo Romero, Navaid Iqbal, Matt Kawahara, Fatima Khusro, Brian Knight, Minal Patel, and Sumita Sharma have no potential conflicts of interest that might be relevant to the contents of this review.

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  1. University of California, San Diego Medical Center, San Diego, CA, USA

    James A. Iwaz & Alan S. Maisel

  2. Veterans Affairs Medical Center, VA San Diego Healthcare System, 3350 La Jolla Village Drive, San Diego, CA, 92161, USA

    James A. Iwaz, Elizabeth Lee, Hermineh Aramin, Danilo Romero, Navaid Iqbal, Matt Kawahara, Fatima Khusro, Brian Knight, Minal V. Patel, Sumita Sharma & Alan S. Maisel

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Iwaz, J.A., Lee, E., Aramin, H. et al. New Targets in the Drug Treatment of Heart Failure. Drugs 76, 187–201 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40265-015-0498-3

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