Tag Archives: STICH

Drug therapy From treating dropsy… Treating congestion is an essential role of the heart failure specialist with diuretic therapy being the cornerstone of treatment. There is an evidence vacuum, however, in how best to relieve congestion. For example, which agents to use, at what doses and with what escalation strategy? Dr Peter Cowburn (Southampton General Hospital) delivered an exemplary lecture highlighting the importance of relieving congestion, the current evidence base and practical advice from his personal experience on how best to achieve the goal of euvolaemia. Relieving congestion matters and, when achieved, is associated with lo

CPET: an overview of “the cardiac cycle” The breathless patient with heart failure and comorbidity can pose a diagnostic conundrum: is the dyspnoea cardiac or respiratory (or something else entirely)? Dr Christopher Boos (Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust) outlined the role of cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) in such situations. CPET integrates a broad range of variables related to cardiorespiratory function, including oxygen uptake and expiratory ventilation, along with blood pressure and electrocardiogram (ECG) tracing. It provides objective information on physiological performance under stress: key output data include peak VO2