Key result
Diagnosing heart failure presents challenges for clinicians, particularly when comorbidities like obesity or chronic airways disease obscure the clinical picture.
Discusses the challenges of diagnosing and monitoring chronic heart failure, particularly in patients with confounding conditions like obesity or chronic airways disease.
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Underscores diagnostic pitfalls in HF with obesity or airways disease; leaves open validation of refined algorithms or biomarkers.
s is well known, heart failure in western countries is increasing in prevalence, places a heavy burden on health budgets (accounting for 1-2% of total health care costs), diminishes considerably quality of life, and notwithstanding major advances in management, has a bleak short-term prognosis. Among the challenges facing clinicians is how best to diagnose heart failure. In some patients this presents no problem, especially when symptoms and physical signs are ''textbook'', an underlying cause is obvious and basic, and simple investigations (chest x ray in particular) confirm clinical suspicions. But other patients are more challenging where the presence of obesity or chronic airways disease, for example, can obscure or confuse the clinical picture.
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Nicholls et al. (2007) conducted a review in chronic heart failure. Diagnosing heart failure presents challenges for clinicians, particularly when comorbidities like obesity or chronic airways disease obscure the clinical picture.
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