Pupalan Iyngkaran

Cardio-Renal Syndrome: New Perspective in Diagnostics

Chronic heart failure and chronic renal failure are at epidemic proportions. These patients have significantly altered cardiac, renal, and all-cause outcomes. Much of the current research has focused on treating these individual organs in isolation. Although there are positive data on outcomes with neurohormonal modulation, they, however, remain underused. At present, data lacks for novel treatment options, while evidence continues to point at significantly worsened prognosis. Current diagnostic tools that detect acute changes in renal function or renal injury appear retrospective, which often hinder meaningful diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. This review is aimed at exploring the importance of accurate assessment of renal function for the heart failure patient by providing a synopsis on cardio-renal physiology and establishing the possibility of novel approaches in bridging the divide.

Comorbid Heart Failure and Renal Impairment: Epidemiology and Management

Heart failure mortality is significantly increased in patients with baseline renal impairment and those with underlying heart failure who subsequently develop renal dysfunction. This accelerated progression occurs independent of the cause or grade of renal dysfunction and baseline risk factors. Recent large prospective databases have highlighted the depth of the current problem, while longitudinal population studies support an increasing disease burden. We have extensively reviewed the epidemiological and therapeutic data among these patients. The evidence points to a progression of heart failure early in renal impairment, even in the albuminuric stage. The data also support poor prescription of prognostic therapies. As renal function is the most important prognostic factor in heart failure, it is important to establish the current understanding of the disease burden and the therapeutic implications.

Northern Territory Heart Failure Initiative-Clinical Audit (NTHFI-CA)-a prospective database on the quality of care and outcomes for acute decompensated heart failure admission in the Northern Territory: study design and rationale.

Introduction Congestive heart failure is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in Australia. Accurate data for the Northern Territory and Indigenous Australians are not presently available. The economic burden of this chronic cardiovascular disease is felt by all funding bodies and it still remains unclear what impact current measures have on preventing the ongoing disease burden and how much of this filters down to more remote areas. Clear differentials also exist in rural areas including a larger Indigenous community, greater disease burden, differing aetiologies for heart failure as well as service and infrastructure discrepancies. It is becoming increasingly clear that urban solutions will not affect regional outcomes. To understand regional issues relevant to heart failure management, an understanding of the key performance indicators in that setting is critical. Methods and analysis The Northern Territory Heart Failure Initiative—Clinical Audit (NTHFI-CA) is a prospective registry of acute heart failure admissions over a 12-month period across the two main Northern Territory tertiary hospitals. The study collects information across six domains and five dimensions of healthcare. The study aims to set in place an evidenced and reproducible audit system for heart failure and inform the developing heart failure disease management programme. The findings, is believed, will assist the development of solutions to narrow the outcomes divide between remote and urban Australia and between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians, in case they exist. A combination of descriptive statistics and mixed effects modelling will be used to analyse the data. Ethics and dissemination This study has been approved by respective ethics committees of both the admitting institutions. All participants will be provided a written informed consent which will be completed prior to enrolment in the study. The study results will be disseminated through local and international health conferences and peer reviewed manuscripts.

Chronic Heart Failure and Comorbid Renal Dysfunction - A Focus on Type 2 Cardiorenal Syndrome

The most important advancements in the Cardiorenal syndrome (CRS) are its definition and subsequent classifications. When the predominant pathology and pathophysiology is the heart, i.e. chronic heart failure (CHF), and where any renal impairment (RI) subsequent to this is secondary, the classification is type 2 CRS. There are unique differences in the pathophysiology and progression of individual subclasses. It is important to understand the evolution of CHF and consequences of subsequent RI as they are becoming increasingly prevalent, aggravate morbidity and mortality and limit many therapeutic options. In this paper we discuss the significance of the type 2 CRS patients in the context of the thematic series.

Why it Remains Difficult for Remote Cardiologist to Obtain the Locus ofControl for Ambulatory Health Care Conditions Such as Congestive HeartFailure

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Northern Territory Perspectives on Heart Failure with Comorbidities – Understanding Trial Validity and Exploring Collaborative Opportunities to Broaden the Evidence Base

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) is an ambulatory care sensitive condition, associated with significant morbidity and mortality, rarely with cure. Outpatient based pharmacological management represents the main and most important aspect of care, and is usually lifelong. This narrative styled opinion review looks at the pharmacological agents recommended in the guidelines in context of the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia. We explore the concept of validity, a term used to describe the basis of standardising a particular trial or study and the population to which it is applicable. We aim to highlight the problems of the current guidelines based approach. We also present alternatives that could utilise the core principles from major trials, while incorporating regional considerations, which could benefit clients living in the NT and remote Australia.

Technology-Assisted Congestive Heart Failure Care

The interface between eHealth technologies and disease management in chronic conditions such as chronic heart failure (CHF) has advanced beyond the research domain. The substantial morbidity, mortality, health resource utilization and costs imposed by chronic disease, accompanied by increasing prevalence, complex comorbidities and changing client and health staff demographics, have pushed the boundaries of eHealth to alleviate costs whilst maintaining services. Whilst the intentions are laudable and the technology is appealing, this nonetheless requires careful scrutiny. This review aims to describe this technology and explore the current evidence and measures to enhance its implementation.

Contextualizing Genetics for Regional Heart Failure Care

Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a chronic and often devastating cardiovascular disorder with no cure. There has been much advancement in the last two decades that has seen improvements in morbidity and mortality. Clinicians have also noted variations in the responses to therapies. More detailed observations also point to clusters of diseases, phenotypic groupings, unusual severity and the rates at which CHF occurs. Medical genetics is playing an increasingly important role in answering some of these observations. This developing field in many respects provides more information than is currently clinically applicable. This includes making sense of the established single gene mutations or uncommon private mutations. In this thematic series which discusses the many factors that could be relevant for CHF care, once established treatments are available in the communities; this section addresses a contextual role for medical genetics.

Heart Attack and Kidney Attack: Evolution of Lay and Clinical Terms for Spontaneous, Acute Organ Injury Syndromes

The term ‘heart attack’, inclusive of Acute Coronary Syndromes (ACS) and myocardial infarction (MI) is based on symptoms, Electrocardiographic (ECG) abnormalities and biomarkers. In an attempt to engage laypeople and non-experts, the term ‘kidney attack’ has been introduced to refer to Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) [1]. Acute kidney injury is a clinical syndrome associated with increased morbidity and mortality making early recognition critical in patient management. The consensus definition of AKI is based on changes in serum Creatinine (sCr) or urine output (UO) [2]. However, it has been long recognized that perturbations in sCr and UO can be induced by pathophysiologic processes that do not cause injury (e.g. volume depletion); just as cardiac output can be decreased by pathophysiologic process unrelated to cardiac ischemia (e.g. bradycardia or volume depletion). Similar to the approach used to differentiate ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) from non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI), a new classification schema of AKI has been proposed. With the advent of robust novel AKI biomarkers, subclinical AKI (a rise in novel AKI biomarkers alone) is analogous to an NSTEMI, while clinical AKI (a rise in AKI biomarkers and significant perturbation in SCr or UO) is analogous to STEMI [3,4].

Adherence to Treatment Guidelines in Heart Failure Patients in the Top End Region of Northern Territory

BACKGROUND Heart failure (HF) is associated with significant morbidity and mortality and recurrent hospitalisations, particularly in the Indigenous Australians of the Northern Territory. In remote Northern Australia, the epidemiology is less clear but anecdotal evidence suggests it may be worse. In addition, some anecdotal evidence suggests that prognostic pharmacological therapy could also be underutilised. Minimal HF data exists in the remote and Indigenous settings, making this study unique. METHODS A retrospective cohort review of pharmacological management of 99 patients from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2014 was performed. RESULTS Ninety-nine (99) patients were identified. 59.6% were non-Indigenous vs 40.4% Indigenous. The majority was male (69.7%). Indigenous patients were younger; median age was 51.4 (43.4-60.6) vs 70.5 (62.2-77.0), p<0.001. Major causes of HF were coronary artery disease (61%) and dilated cardiomyopathy (27%). Associated comorbidities included hypertension (52%), dyslipidaemia (38%), diabetes mellitus (40%) and atrial fibrillation (25%). The use of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers (ACEI/ARB) and β-blocker was 68% and 87%, respectively. Forty-one (41) patients not on an ACEI/ARB and/or β-blocker were identified. Seventeen (17) of those patients (42%) did not receive an ACEI/ARB because of renal failure. Four (4) patients (10%) did not take a β-blocker due to hypotension. Fourteen (14) patients (34%) were not prescribed an ACEI/ARB and/or β-blocker had no identifiable contraindications. CONCLUSIONS Indigenous patients are over-represented at a younger age demonstrating the alarming rate of disease burden in NTs young Indigenous population. Generally, ACEI/ARBs were underutilised compared to β-blockers with renal impairment being the primary contraindication. There is a need to develop processes to further improve the use of heart failure medications and setting up a HF database could be the first step in progress.