ABSTRACT
Congestive heart failure (CHF), owing to the drastic increase in cardiovascular
risk factors such as obesity and diabetes and improved survival rate after
acute myocardial infarction (and subsequent development of CHF), with the
prevalence of 4.9 million and an incidence of 550,000 cases per year, is a major
and increasing cause of death and disability in the U.S. Heart failure (HF) accounts
for 999,000 hospital discharges annually (a 165% increase since 1979), and its
in-hospital mortality and readmission rates are extremely high (1-4). While
sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a major cause of death in patients with CHF,
many individuals also die from progressive pump failure and shock (defined as
cardiac death with preceding symptomatic or hemodynamic deterioration) (5,6).
