ISHLT Practice Guidelines for Management of Heart Failure in Children

Published 1 December 2004

David Rosenthal, MD; Maryanne R.K. Chrisant, MD; Erik Edens, MD, PhD; Lynn Mahony, MD; Charles Canter, MD; Steven Colan, MD; Anne Dubin, MD; Jacque Lamour, MD; Robert Ross, MD; Robert Shaddy, MD; Linda Addonizio, MD; Lee Beerman, MD; Stuart Berger, MD; Daniel Bernstein, MD; Elizabeth Blume, MD; Mark Boucek, MD; Paul Checchia, MD; Anne Dipchand, MD; Jonathan Drummond-Webb, MD; Jay Fricker, MD; Richard Friedman, MD; Sara Hallowell, RN; Robert Jaquiss, MD; Seema Mital, MD; Elfriede Pahl, MD; Bennett Pearce, MD; Larry Rhodes, MD; Kathy Rotondo, MD; Paolo Rusconi, MD; Janet Scheel, MD; Tajinder Pal Singh, MD; Jeffrey Towbin, MD

J Heart Lung Transplant. 2004 Dec;23(12):1313-33

• Advanced Heart Failure & Transplantation
• Cardiology
• Pediatrics
• Pharmacy
• Professional Guideline
• Publications & Journals
• Standards & Guidelines

Heart failure (HF) in the United States is well recognized as a major public health problem, with over 900,000 hospital admissions annually in the United States, and greater than 250,000 deaths per year. The great majority of heart failure occurs in adults. While the scope of the problem is less well defined in children, recent data from the Pediatric Cardiomyopathy Registry suggest an annual incidence of 1.13 cases of cardiomyopathy per 100,000 children. 

There is a large, and rapidly growing literature addressing HF treatment for adult patients, with a much smaller literature concerning HF therapy in children. Excellent guidelines for adult patients have recently been published, but given the significant differences between adult and pediatric patients with HF, there is little reason to believe that these guidelines are directly applicable to children. Accordingly, this document attempts to summarize the relevant literature and synthesize management guidelines for children with HF.

Read at JHLT