Myocardial hibernation and heart failure: introduction

For many years the functional sequelae of chronic coronary artery disease (CAD) were considered essentially irreversible and amenable only to palliative treatment. For example, asynergy on the left ventriculogram implied infarcted myocardium or scar. Evidence accrued over the past three decades, however, indicates that chronic left ventricular dysfunction in patients with CAD is not necessarily irreversible.1 Two pieces of evidence led to a new concept of reversible myocardial …