ABSTRACT
Heart failure is the major cause of mortality in Western countries. Medical treatment of heart failure is associated with 50% survival at 5 years. Experimental models are essential for us to better understand the progression of the disease and elaborate new therapy and there are several excellent reviews that have been published in the past (1-4). Heart transplantation, left ventricular (LV) assist devices, artifi cial hearts, cardiac bioassist techniques, and pharmacologic agents require animal models for testing and optimizing before they are implemented in clinical trials and used as routine treatment in patients. The perfect model of heart failure that reproduces every aspect of the natural disease does not exist. Acute and chronic heart failure models have been developed to reproduce different aspects of the pathophysiology. It is important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each model to apply them appropriately either to understand the pathophysiology or to test new treatments.
