Heart Failure Flashcards
General factors
- 5.8 million Americas have it
- 670,000 new cases per year
- 3.5 million hospitalization per year
- mortality 50%
- $34.6 billion/year
- prognosis improving- mortality increasing
- the more we increase longevity, the more cases there are
Definition of heart failure
- inability of the heart to meet the metabolic needs of the body
- to be distinguished from cardiac dysfunction with successful adaptation
- when adaptation fails and becomes part of the problem
- clinical: no single one finding,a complex of findings
Causes of heart failure
- Decreased circulatory supply to the body: coronary heart disease (MI, ischemic cardiomyopathy), valvular heart disease, cardiomyopathy
- Increased circulatory demand from the body: hypertension, thyrotoxicosis, anemia, A-V fistula
- Heart failure- final common pathway
Adaptive mechanisms of heart failure
1) Frank-Starling (short term)
2) Neuro-hormonal (intermediate) - Renal
3) Hypertrophy
Frank Starling Mechanism
Normal curve- shows improved ventricular performance when the EDV is increased (increased preload or venous return)
- normal curve moves upward and to the left with exercise or increased sympathetic stimulation
- heart failure: down and to the right with impaired ventricular performance: you can still increase EDV but the ventricular performance isn’t getting much better
- short term adaptation
- with increasing severe LV dysfunction the LV filling pressure reaches 25 mm Hg where the oncotic pressure of the plasma is exceeded and fluid crosses the alveolar membrane and enters the pulmonary alveoli
Neurohumeral Sympathetic Stimulation
Increased plasma NE:
- increase release from neurohumoral nerve endings
- decrease uptake by those endings
- decrease rate of degradation
- increase B1 receptor exhaustion due to chronic stimulation
- decrease B1 receptor synthesis (low levels of B1 in CHF patients)
- increase coronary sinus NE output
-increasing levels of PNE are associated with decreasing length of survival in heart failure
- redistribution of cardiac output
- maintain flow to brain, heart at expense to the skin, skeletal muscle and kidneys
Adaptive Mechanisms: Renal
- Stimuli:
- Decrease GFR, RBF
- Increase aldosterone
Response:
- increase Na and H2O retention
- increase plasma volume
- increase venous return and pressure
Effects of Angiotensin II
- activated by adrenergic stimulation of J-G Apparatus and decrease renal blood flow
- increase vasoconstriction and blood pressure
- increase aldosterone release
- vessel hypertrophy, mycocardial hypertrophy, increased NE release, Na+ retention, CNS dypsogenia, efferent constriction
Atrial natiretic factor
- counter- regulatory
- promotes vasodilation, natriuresis, suppresses RAS
Brain Natiretic factor
- from ventricle
- counter-regulatory
- similar to ANP- promotes vasodilation, natriuresis, suppresses RAS
Endothelin
- from endothelial cells
- potent vasoconstrictor
Inflammatory cytokines
- TNF alpha
- promotes cell hypertrophy- apoptossi
Neurohormal stimulation in heart failure
-norepinephrine, plasma renin, arginine vasopressin, atrial natriuretic factor and endothelin are all much higher in patients with heart failure
Adaptive Mechanism: Hypertrophy
- increase in myocardial mass- remodeling
- if abnormality is not corrected, myocardial dysfunction will worse and become permanent
- when? pressure vs. volume overload
- maintain or increase contractility
- Ejection fraction= (EDV-ESV)/EDV x 100
Effects of hypertrophy
- poor contracile function despite hypertrophy
- force velocity relationship- much lower for CHF