2nd edition. — Elsevier, 2011. — 915 p.In what seems on the surface to be a paradox, the prevalence, incidence, and mortality of heart failure are steadily climbing despite phenomenal progress in the diagnosis and treatment of all forms of cardiac disease. As we successfully manage—yet not cure—patients with heart disease, the damage to their cardiac muscles persists and sometimes progresses as adaptive compensatory mechanisms become maladaptive. With steadily increasing life spans and the growing epidemics
of diabetes, obesity, and atrial firillation in the elderly, the stage is now set for a large increase in the number of heart failure cases. Thus we are facing great challenges in our quest to control cardiac disease.
How are we going to win this battle? Surely not with a single magic bullet, whether it is a gene, device, or drug. We believe Douglas Mann’s excellent book, Heart Failure, details the right plan. As with any battle, we must understand the terrain on which it will be fought. The fist three sections
of Heart Failure do just that. Section I delves into the basic underlying mechanisms on genetic, molecular, tissue, organ, and organismal levels, whereas Section II describes the pathophysiology of disease progression. These discussions involve not only the heart but also the vascular bed, neurohormonal systems, kidneys, and lungs. The most common etiologies of heart failure are described in Section III.
Section IV provides a detailed description of the clinical manifestations and laboratory features of heart failure. Finally, the current armamentaria in the treatment of heart failure—drugs, devices, and surgery—and how each of these and their combinations) can be optimally deployed are
described in Section V.
A leader in the fiht against one of humankind’s most stubborn enemies, Dr. Mann should be congratulated on selecting the right topics and the best authors to write about them. His skillful editing pulled everything together, making this book much greater than simply the sum of the excellent individual chapters.
This second edition builds on the fist, which was warmly received. Fully one third of the chapters are new. Many chapters that appeared in the last edition have new authors and all have been updated to include the most current data and research.
