Management of Worsening Heart Failure With Reduced Ejection Fraction JACC Focus Seminar 3/3

Despite worsening heart failure (HF) being extremely common, expensive, and associated with substantial risk of death, there remain no dedicated clinical practice guidelines for the specific management of these patients. The lack of a management guideline is despite a rapidly evolving evidence-base, as a number of recent clinical trials have demon-strated multiple therapies to be safe and efficacious in this high-risk population. Herein, we propose a framework for treating worsening HF with reduced ejection fraction with the sense of urgency it deserves. This includes treating congestion; managing precipitants; and establishing a foundation of rapid-sequence, simultaneous, and/or in-hospital initiation of quadruple medical therapy for HF with reduced ejection fraction, with the top priority being at least low doses of all 4 medications. Moreover, to maximally reduce residual clinical risk, we further propose consideration of upfront simultaneous use of vericiguat (ie, quintuple medical therapy) and administration of intravenous iron for those who are iron deficient. (J Am Coll Cardiol 2023;82:559-571) & COPY; 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier on behalf of the American College of Cardiology Foundation. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

Despite the lack of dedicated clinical practice guidelines for the management of worsening heart failure, recent clinical trials have shown multiple therapies to be safe and effective in this high-risk population. Therefore, a proposed framework suggests treating congestion, managing precipitants, and initiating quadruple medical therapy for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction with a sense of urgency. Additionally, simultaneous use of vericiguat and intravenous iron may further reduce clinical risk.