© 2004 by BMJ Publishing Group & British Cardiac Society
EDITORIAL
Anaemia and heart failure
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor Andrew J S Coats
Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia; ajscoats@med.usyd.edu.au
Anaemia has been found to be a common complication of chronic heart failure, reducing oxygen delivery to the periphery. Erythropoietin to correct anaemia has a long history in the management of renal failure with complicating anaemia, and the first reports of the use or erythropoietin in heart failure are coming through.
Abbreviations: ACE, angiotensin converting enzyme; CHF, chronic heart failure; CRF, chronic renal failure; EPO, erythropoietin; GFR, glomerular filtration rate; PKV·O2, peak oxygen consumption; SOLVD, studies of left ventricular dysfunction; TNF
, tumour necrosis factor
Keywords: heart failure; symptoms; pathophysiology; anaemia; erythropoietin; exercise tolerance
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Chronic heart failure (CHF) is frequently associated with poor exercise tolerance and debilitating symptoms despite optimal modern treatment. In the past we expected that this was due to the direct consequences of poor cardiac output and congested lungs. Other important pathophysiological disturbances in CHF occur as both short and long term consequences of the initial cardiac dysfunction. These include neurohormonal activation, cytokine release and trophic changes in skeletal muscle and the peripheral vasculature, and disturbances in reflex control systems.
The severity of symptomatic exercise limitation varies between patients, and bears little relation to the extent of the left ventricular systolic dysfunction measured at rest, or to markers of central haemodynamic disturbance.1 Although there are several reasons for this, much recent research has suggested that changes which occur in the periphery as a consequence of the systemic effects of heart failure, may have become the principal factors limiting exercise.2 Many changes
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This article has been cited by other articles:
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Cheng, T. O.
(2005). Is There an Optimal Hematocrit Value for Cardiac Patients?. J Am Coll Cardiol
45: 1549-1549
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