Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction

Abstract

Heart failure (HF) is one of the largest drivers of morbidity and health care expenditure in the world and continues to increase in prevalence at an alarming rate. Most of this increasing burden is related to the rapidly expanding population of HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), largely driven by the increasing rates of obesity, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome in western countries. In the last 3 decades, there have been tremendous advances in treating patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), with essentially no change in outcomes for HFpEF. The lack of efficacy for established HFrEF therapies in HFpEF underscores the fundamental differences between both these phenotypically distinct forms of HF. In this review, we will summarize the current understanding of the pathophysiology of HFpEF, discuss diagnostic and therapeutic strategies, and provide future avenues to direct clinical investigation.