The Genetic Challenges and Opportunities in Advanced Heart Failure

The causes of heart failure are diverse. Inherited causes represent an important clinical entity and can be divided into 2 major categories: familial and metabolic cardiomyopathies. The distinct features that might be present in early disease states can become broadly overlapping with other diseases, such as in the case of inherited cardiomyopathies (ie, familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or mitochondrial diseases). In this review article, we focus on genetic issues related to advanced heart failure. Because of the emerging importance of this topic and its breadth, we sought to focus our discussion on the known genetic forms of heart failure syndromes, genetic testing, and newer data on pharmacogenetics and therapeutics in the treatment of heart failure, to primarily encourage clinicians to place a priority on the diagnosis and treatment of these potentially treatable conditions.