Guidelines for the diagnosis of heart failure

Key Points

• Provide standardized clinical consensus guidelines for the systematic evaluation and accurate diagnosis of heart failure.
• Convened an expert task force by the European Society of Cardiology to evaluate diagnostic practices and available clinical evidence.
• Established consensus criteria requiring both characteristic symptoms and objective clinical evidence of cardiac dysfunction for diagnosis.
• Outlined standard diagnostic pathways integrating clinical history, physical examination, and noninvasive cardiac investigations.