Digitalis therapy for patients in clinical heart failure.

The most commonly used preparation of digitalis is digoxin, which is obtained from the leaves of Digitalis lanata, a common flowering plant called “foxglove.” The words digitalis and digoxin in this article are used interchangeably. An exhaustive review published in 19961 cited a large number of references and had detailed data and descriptions of a large number of studies and all early trials. The present article summarizes those data but focuses on and emphasizes data collected since that time.