I am always taken aback when I recommend a switch to sacubitril/valsartan in a patient with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) and the response is “my patient feels fine”. This is a common response and certainly not a good enough reason to not optimize guideline directed medical therapy (GDMT) in patients with HFrEF. Optimization of GDMT in HFrEF, known to improve morbidity and mortality (1,2), is dismal. The Change the Management of Patients with Heart Failure (CHAMP-HF) registry included patients in the United States with chronic HFrEF receiving at least one oral medication for management of HF and showed >25% of eligible patients are not prescribed angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin receptor blocker/angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor, >33% are not prescribed a beta blocker, >50% are not prescribed a mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist. Remarkably, even among those receiving GDMT fewer than 25% are prescribed target doses and only 1% of eligible patients are simultaneously on target doses of all 3 classes of GDMT (3,4).
The mechanisms for suboptimal prescription of GDMT in HFrEF are complex and undertreatment is even more evident among women, minority patient populations, and patients from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, among others. Cost is certainly an issue, especially with more novel HF therapies and co-pay assistance programs are not always available to our most vulnerable patients. There are not enough HF cardiologists to take care of the continuously increasing population of HF patients and therefore, optimization of GDMT needs to be done by general cardiologists and primary care clinicians as well. We should also become creative and use telemedicine to optimize GDMT more efficiently. We do our patients a disservice by not optimizing GDMT that improves HF morbidity and mortality.
And just as optimization of GDMT is not ideal, neither is our evaluation of etiology of HF. Optimization of GDMT and determination of etiology of HF whose management may change disease trajectory should be undertaken in all patients with new-onset HF. This begins with a fundamental understanding of the various etiologies of HF, the laboratory and imaging testing needed, and the best treatment strategy for the underlying etiology discovered- if any (cue, “idiopathic” cardiomyopathy). O’Connor and colleagues’ observational cohort study from the Get With The Guidelines- Heart Failure (GWTG-HF) registry demonstrates the need to improve the testing we perform to exclude coronary artery disease (CAD) as the underlying etiology of new-onset HF.4
Why is this important? Well, of course for treatment, which involves deciding whether medical therapy (aspirin, statins) or revascularization (surgical or percutaneous) is a more optimal strategy. And most important to improve disease trajectory as continued ischemia will lead to worsening HF. O’Connor and colleagues found that the majority of 17,185 patients hospitalized for new-onset HF did not receive testing for CAD either during the hospitalization or in the 90 days before and after, despite data demonstrating that 60% (!!!) of HF patients have concomitant significant CAD.4 And consistent with disparities I mentioned earlier regarding the undertreatment of women with GDMT, men were more likely to be tested for CAD.
Diagnosing and treating CAD provides an opportunity to discuss risk factor modification with patients such as smoking cessation, diabetes control, exercise, healthy diets etc.… to further mitigate future risk. The importance of optimization of GDMT in patients with HFrEF cannot be understated and analogous to this, is the importance of examining the underlying etiology of HF in patients with new-onset HF with preserved, borderline, or reduced EF to improve disease trajectory. Furthermore, inequities in both aspects of the care of HF patients in terms of identification of etiology and optimization of GDMT, must be addressed on a national level. We have plenty of data illustrating suboptimal optimization of GDMT in those with established HFrEF and suboptimal testing for CAD in those with new-onset HF. The next steps are understanding the mechanisms and implementing strategies to improve care. The need for this is critical to reduce morbidity and mortality in all HF patients.
References
- Yancy CW, Jessup M, Bozkurt B et al. 2017 ACC/AHA/HFSA Focused Update of the 2013 ACCF/AHA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines and the Heart Failure Society of America. Circulation 2017;137.
- Yancy CW, Januzzi JL, Allen LA et al. 2017 ACC Expert Consensus Decision Pathway for Optimization of Heart Failure Treatment: Answers to 10 Pivotal Issues About Heart Failure With Reduced Ejection Fraction. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 2017.
- Greene SJ, Butler J, Albert NM et al. Contemporary Utilization and Dosing of Guideline-Directed Medical Therapy for Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction: From the CHAMP-HF Registry. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 2018.
- O’Connor, Kyle D., et al. “Testing for Coronary Artery Disease in Older Patients With New-Onset Heart Failure.” Circulation: Heart Failure, vol. 13, no. 4, 2020, doi:10.1161/circheartfailure.120.006963.
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