ACC/AHA Guidelines for the Evaluation and Management of Chronic Heart Failure in the Adult: Executive Summary

A report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines

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Published 1 February 2002

Sharon A Hunt, MD; David W Baker, MD, MPH; Marshall H Chin, MD, MPH; Michael P Cinquegrani, MD; Arthur M Feldman, MD, PhD; Gary S Francis, MD; Theodore G Ganiats, MD; Sidney Goldstein, MD; Gabriel Gregoratos, MD; Mariell L Jessup, MD; R.Joseph Noble, MD; Milton Packer, MD; Marc A Silver, MD; Lynne Warner Stevenson, MD; Raymond J Gibbons, MD; Elliott M Antman, MD; Joseph S Alpert, MD; David P Faxon, MD; Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD; Gabriel Gregoratos, MD; Alice K Jacobs, MD; Loren F Hiratzka, MD; Richard O Russell, MD; Sidney C Smith Jr, MD

J Heart Lung Transplant. 2002 Feb;21(2):189-203

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American College of Cardiology (ACC) LogoAmerican Heart Association (AHA) LogoISHLTHeart failure (HF) is a major public health problem in the United States. Nearly 5 million patients in this country have HF, and nearly 500,000 patients are diagnosed with HF for the first time each year. The disorder is the underlying reason for 12 to 15 million office visits and 6.5 million hospital days each year. During the last 10 years, the annual number of hospitalizations has increased from approximately 550,000 to nearly 900,000 for HF as a primary diagnosis and from 1.7 to 2.6 million for HF as a primary or secondary diagnosis.  Nearly 300,000 patients die of HF as a primary or contributory cause each year, and the number of deaths has increased steadily despite advances in treatment.

Since the first published guidelines on this topic were developed by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) in 1995, a great deal of progress has been made in the development of both pharmacological and nonpharmacological approaches to treatment for this common, costly, disabling, and generally fatal disorder. This document on the evaluation and management of heart failure was also developed by ACC and AHA, in collaboration with ISHLT, to reassess and update the content of their original guidelines.

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