Acute heart failure and cardiac remodeling

Abstract

Acute heart failure, as with chronic heart failure, is a clinical syndrome that has many different etiologies and as such, it is the result of very diverse pathophysiologic processes. From a theoretical point of view, the heart, ventricles, myocardium, cardiac myocytes, and constituting proteins can be strictly normal when the episode of acute heart failure occurs. In this case, heart failure is the result of the failure of the cardiac pump while myocardial structure and function are normal. Alternatively, each and often several of the above-described structures may have been subjected previously to a more or less severe and longstanding remodeling process due to very diverse chronic pathophysiologic mechanisms. © 2008 Springer-Verlag London.