Congestive heart failure

Congestive heart failure in adults should be conceptualized and dealt with as a clinical syndrome. It is neither a diagnosis nor a disease as such. Patients with heart failure present with clusters of symptoms that define sets of systemic congestion, pulmonary congestion, and inadequate cardiac output. Some have potentially correctable anatomic or metabolic defects, others have myocardial failure, and some have both as underlying causes of the syndrome. A careful analysis of the symptom clusters may provide important clues to the underlying etiologic diagnosis, which should be established before initiating therapy for heart failure.