Reaction to ACC/AHA/HFSA Heart Failure Guidelines, with Muthiah Vaduganathan, MD, MPH

Although many new guidelines could be considered historic or ground-breaking, those are how the ACC/AHA/HFSA 2022 heart failure guidelines are being lauded at the American College of Cardiology’s 71st Annual Scientific Sessions.

Released the day before ACC.22 began, the guidelines reflect massive advances in management of heart failure, not only since the last update ACC/AHA guidance was released in 2017, but even since the release of the ESC 2021 guidelines less than a year ago. With the ability to include data from EMPEROR-Preserved, the guideline writing committee were able to provide the first evidence-based recommendations for SGLT2 inhibitors as a treatment for heart failure with preserved ejection.

With their release coming on the heels of the ESC guideline, some might interpret the ACC/AHA/HFSA guidance as a replacement for the ESC guidelines, but many view the pair as complementary to one another. For the first time, major organizations have come to a consensus on the inclusion of SGLT2 inhibitors as guideline-directed medical therapy for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.

For insight into the timing of the guideline release, the historic significance, and the contents of the guidelines, Practical Cardiology reached out to advisory board member Muthiah Vaduganathan, MD, MPH, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and that conversation can be found below.