Medical Management and Device-Based Therapies in Chronic Heart Failure

Heart failure (HF) remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Major advancements in optimal guideline-directed medical therapy, including novel pharmacological agents, are now available for the treatment of chronic HF including HF with reduced ejection fraction and HF with preserved ejection fraction. Despite these efforts, there are several limitations of medical therapy including but not limited to: delays in implementation and/or initiation; inability to achieve target dosing; tolerability; adherence; and recurrent and chronic costs of care. A significant proportion of patients remain symptomatic with poor HF-related outcomes including rehospitalization, progression of disease, and mortality. Driven by these unmet clinical needs, there has been a significant growth of innovative device-based interventions across all HF phenotypes over the past several decades. This state-of-the-art review will summarize the current landscape of guideline-directed medical therapy for chronic HF, discuss its limitations including barriers to implementation, and review device-based therapies which have established efficacy or demonstrated promise in the management of chronic HF.