Biomarkers and Heart Failure

Heart failure (HF) represents fatal endpoint of all cardiovascular diseases. Acute and chronic HF is a complex, heterogeneous syndrome consisting of many overlapping syndromes making its diagnosis and treatment more challenging. There is no single test for diagnosis of HF, and diagnosis is based on clinical judgment driven by a combination of history, physical examination, and appropriate tests. Despite improvements in clinical management within the last 50 years, it has still been a disease of poor prognosis. Attempts to further improve its prognosis can only be achieved by understanding pathophysiology of HF clearly and finding, developing, and using appropriate and new clinical biochemical markers for diagnosis of each different clinical subtype and hence unique intervention of that specific subtype of HF. This review is an overview of biomarkers, which are either currently used in the clinical practice or hold promise for future use in patients with both chronic and acute HF