Numerous reports suggest that about one-third of patients with congestive heart failure do not have any abnormality of left ventricular systolic function. These patients presumably have heart failure on the basis of ventricular diastolic dysfunction. Our objective was to develop a comprehensive overview of published reports of the prevalence, clinical features and prognosis of diastolic heart f...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that gouty arthritis (gout) is a risk factor for incidence of heart failure and for echocardiographic measures signifying subclinical heart failure. DESIGN Post-hoc, longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses of a prospective cohort study where data were collected in 4-year intervals since 1971. SETTINGS The population-based Framingham Offspring Study. PART...

In clinical practice, approximately half of patients with heart failure have preserved left ventricular systolic function, with high morbidity and mortality rates, and major socio-economic burden derived from their management [2]. The majority of patients who present with heart failure and normal systolic function do not have a defined myocardial disease, but it has been demonstrated that they ...