[Can we prevent heart failure in women with antihypertensive treatment?]

Arterial hypertension has been long considered as one of the most common etiological conditions predisposing to the development of heart failure. Until the middle of the last century, almost a half of the all deaths caused by arterial hypertension were related with heart failure. Natural history of hypertension leads to heart failure in two main mechanisms. One of them is hypertension induced left ventricular hypertrophy and fibrosis, progressive deterioration of left ventricular compliance, increase in left ventricular enddiastolic pressure which in turn lead to left ventricular diastolic dysfunction. The other pathomechanism of heart failure associated to hypertension is accelerated coronary artery atherosclerosis, ischemia of the left ventricle and its systolic dysfunction. In women, prevalence of heart failure related to diastolic dysfunction (with preserved ejection fraction) is more common than heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. There are no specific guidelines for treating clinically overt diastolic heart failure, but pharmacological treatment should be directed at normalizing blood pressure, promoting regression of hypertrophy, preventing tachycardia and treating symptoms of congestion. Preventive strategies directed toward an early and aggressive blood pressure control are likely to offer the greatest promise for reducing the incidence of diastolic heart failure. The other type of potentially preventable heart failure may be related with cardiotoxicity of anticancer medication. Hypertension is a known factor strongly increasing the risk of cardiotoxicity of chemotherapy. Each women with arterial hypertension undergoing radio- or chemotherapy of cancer should achieve optimal blood pressure control before and during the oncological treatment. There are strong evidence that treatment with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors protects against chemotherapy induced heart failure.