Alterations in the prognosis of chronic heart failure: An overview of the major mortality trials

Treatment of chronic heart failure (CHF) remains a major medical problem. Although in the last decades the benefits of several therapies in different patient populations with left ventricular dysfunction have been established, morbidity and mortality of CHF patients are high. Consequently, in the last decade improvement of survival has become the primary therapeutic endpoint in CHF studies, and the evaluation of the influence of (new) drugs on mortality has become crucial. In the present article an overview of the large mortality trials is given, and the shifts and alterations in the drug treatment strategy of CHF are discussed.