Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors: Do We Utilize Our Knowledge in Heart Failure Patients?

Needless to stress the fact that the development ofagents which inhibit the activity of angiotensin-convert-ing enzyme represents a very important advance in the treat-ment of heart failure (HF). Such agents can be considered as a revolution in the present treatment of HF and with the re-cent and current studies it seems that we do not overestimate their benefits when we say that every HF patient is a candi-date for their use unless he or she has a real and convincing contraindication. Now we have a wide range of ACE inhibitors (ACEIs) in practice, ranging from those which have to be used fre-quently in divided doses such as captopril, to those which can be used once daily such as ramipril, perindopril, and trandolapril. Others such as enalapril can be adjusted accord-ing to individual cases (usually bid). Some other agents are used in clinical practice such as fosinopril, lisinopril