Heart Failure: Pharmacologic Management

Now there is an up-to-date guide for optimizing pharmacologic therapy in treating patients with heart failure. Reflecting current practice at leading medical centers, Heart Failure: Pharmacologic Management provides both the biologic and pathologic underpinnings of each pharmacologic agent in current use. It also supplies detailed discussions of the clinical investigations that support current understanding of the risks and benefits associated with the use of these drugs. Thorough references make the book useful to the novice as well as the experienced clinician.

Initial chapters focus on agents that are considered standard care:

• diuretics
  
• ACE inhibitors
  
• angiotensin receptor antagonists
  
• aldosterone antagonists
  
• beta-blockers

The discussion moves to agents currently under investigation:

• Vasopressin antagonists
  
• erythropoietin

Next, the authors consider some controversial drugs:

• inotropic agents
  
• antiarrhythmic drugs
  
• anticoagulants

An insightful examination of pharmacogenetics considers:

• how studies of the genetic profile of patients helps determine which patient populations are most likely to respond to a given class of drugs
  
• the potential use of pharmacogenetics to tailor a pharmacologic regimen for maximum benefit and minimum risk

Multidrug pharmacy for heart failure therapy

An extremely helpful concluding chapter provides a roadmap of drugs with which to approach the patient with heart failure, along with an overview of the skills you need to use it most effectively. This straightforward, step-by-step algorithm will save you countless hours of research and help you make your prescribing decisions with confidence.

Arthur M. Feldman is the editor of Heart Failure: Pharmacologic Management, published by Wiley.