Alteration of medical therapy in patients with heart failure relative to change in symptom severity

Abstract

In this observational analysis from the Practice Innovation and Clinical Excellence Registry®, we examined changes in guideline-directed medical therapies relative to changes in symptom severity in ambulatory patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, finding change in medication more often occurring when patients were changing their New York Heart Association symptom severity, rather than during periods of stable symptoms. Additionally, despite being available for a year during the time of our analysis, the use of sacubitril/valsartan was extremely low, and most often added in the context of worsening symptoms, not how this drug was studied and not how the guidelines articulate its use.

Keywords: Guidelines; Heart failure; Medications; Therapy.