Management of the cardiorenal syndrome in acute heart failure

Editor's Choice- Call to action: Initiation of multidisciplinary care for acute heart failure begins in the Emergency Department

The Emergency Department is the first point of healthcare contact for most patients presenting with signs and symptoms of acute heart failure (AHF) and thus, plays a critical role in AHF management. Despite the increasing burden of AHF on healthcare systems in general and Emergency Departments in particular, there is little guidance for implementing care and disease management programmes. This has led to an urgent call for action to prioritize and improve the management of patients with AHF presenting to the Emergency Department. At a local level, hospitals are urged to develop and implement individual multidisciplinary AHF management programmes, which include detailed care pathways and the monitoring of management adherence, to ensure that care is based on the pathophysiology and causes of AHF. Multiple disciplines, including emergency medicine, hospital medicine, cardiology, nephrology and geriatrics, should provide input into the development of a multidisciplinary approach to AHF management in the ED and beyond, including in-hospital treatment, discharge and follow-up. This will ensure consensus of opinion and improve adherence. The benefits of standardized, multidisciplinary care have been shown in other areas of acute and chronic diseases and will also provide benefit for AHF patients presenting to Emergency Departments.

Serelaxin: a novel therapy for acute heart failure with a range of hemodynamic and non-hemodynamic actions

Acute heart failure (AHF) is characterized by high morbidity and mortality and high costs. Although the treatment of AHF has not changed substantially in recent decades, it is becoming clear that treatment strategies for AHF need to address both the immediate hemodynamic abnormalities giving rise to congestion as well as prevent organ damage that can influence long-term prognosis. Serelaxin, the recombinant form of human relaxin-2, a naturally occurring peptide hormone, has been found to significantly improve symptoms and signs of AHF, prevent in-hospital worsening heart failure, as well as significantly improve 180-day cardiovascular and all-cause mortality after a 48-h infusion commenced within 16 h of presentation (RELAX-AHF study). Available data suggest that the clinical benefits may be attributable to a potential combination of multiple actions of serelaxin, including improving systemic, cardiac, and renal hemodynamics, and protecting cells and organs from damage via anti-inflammatory, anti-cell death, anti-fibrotic, anti-hypertrophic, and pro-angiogenic effects. This manuscript describes the short- and long-term effects of serelaxin in AHF patients, analyzing how these effects can be explained by taking into account the range of hemodynamic and non-hemodynamic actions of serelaxin. In addition, this paper also addresses several aspects related to the role of serelaxin in the therapy of AHF that remain to be clarified and warrant further investigation.