Clinical and epidemilógical aspects of heart failure

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show clinical and epidemiological data of a small, albeit representative, number of patients with heart failure (HF)  seen at the Cardiology Unity of the Teaching Hospital at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora. It also aims to compare these data to those from the world literature.
There was a questionnaire to check the following clinical features: symptoms, functional class, sex, age, race, drugs in use, therapeutic response and ethiology of HF. All the patients underwent electrocardiography at rest and doppler bidimensional echocardiography.
From November 2005 to May 2006, 35 patients with HF were evaluated. 60% were men (age range: 20-87), and 28 had good response to drugs, being classified in functional class I.  Classes II and III had 3 patients each.  Only 1 patient was in class IV. ECG revealed 25.7% with left bundle branch block, 20% with atrial fibrillation, 11.42% with left atrial enlargement and 11.42% with left fentricular enlargement. The ECG was normal in 8.57%. Left ventricular ejection fraction was reduced in 28 patients (80%). The most frequent etiology was hypertensive cardiomyopathy (40%), followed by idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (25.72%) and ischemic cardiomyopathy (14%). Heart failure is a syndrome that results from the interplay of different regional epidemiological features, with the ischemic etiology gaining more importance as industrial and urban developments occur.

Keywords: heart failure; epidemiology; etiology; public health.