What is Congestive Heart Fail... Video Transcript

Participants

Ainat Beniaminov MD, Simon Maybaum MD, Paul J. Moniz

Summary

Congestive heart failure (CHF) is the most common heart condition in the elderly population, and every year nearly a half million new cases are diagnosed. But what it is it, and more importantly, what causes it? Join our panel of experts as they discuss the basics of this life-threatening condition.

Webcast Transcript

PAUL J. MONIZ, MD:  I’m Paul Moniz.  Thank you for joining us on this webcast.  Today's topic is congestive heart failure.

Did you know congestive heart failure is the most common cardiac condition among the elderly.  In the United States, it effects some five million people, and each year more than half a million new cases are diagnosed.

The condition, known as CHF, refers to a poorly pumping heart that causes a fluid backup in the heart, lungs and other organs.  The result is shortness of breath, swelling in the body and debilitating fatigue.

Here to talk about this and explain more about this are two specialists in the field.  To my left is Dr. Simon Maybaum.  He is an attending cardiologist at the Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital.  Thank you for joining us.

SIMON MAYBAUM, MD:  Thank you.

PAUL J. MONIZ, MD:  Next to him, we have Dr. Ainat Benjaminovitz, who is a cardiologist at the same hospital, and who has agreed to be called Dr. B for the rest of the segment for my purposes.  We appreciate that.

Dr. Maybaum, let's begin with you.  Can you give us a more detailed description of what congestive heart failure is, and does it refer to all heart failures?

SIMON MAYBAUM, MD:  Well, I certainly would agree that heart failure and congestive heart failure is a very serious problem.  Certainly, we're becoming now more aware of how serious it is in our community.

Heart failure is essentially a disease of the heart muscle or the valves of the heart which make it weak or fail, as its name suggests.  So, the heart cannot continue to form its normal function.  As we know, the heart pumps blood through the body and then returns it through the lungs.  When the heart fails and the muscle becomes weak, or the valves become ineffectual, the heart enlarges.  Blood accumulates in the heart, and then eventually in other parts of the body.

Heart failure can start from an unnoticeable condition, that which we call asymptomatic, and progress to a severely debilitating disease; one which mimics, in some ways, cancer where the patients are really bed bound and have very little hope for the future.  So, it's a very wide range of presentations.

PAUL J. MONIZ, MD:  Dr. B, let's bring you into this.  When we refer to the congestive part of this, what does that mean exactly?  At what point does it become congestive heart failure?

AINAT BENJAMINOVITZ, MD:  As Dr. Maybaum was alluding, the first thing that happens is that congestive heart failure, as it stands, is really the body's response to a failing heart.  There are various compensatory mechanisms that come into play.  As a consequence, the person experiences symptoms of congestion.

For ease of illustration, I just wanted to bring this up in this model.  As you can see, here is a model of the heart.  Here are the lungs.  This is the left ventricle or the main pumping chamber of the heart itself.  This is what we talk about getting enlarged when the heart begins to fail, starting the syndrome of congestive heart failure.  So as you can see, this chamber is finite.  When the heart begins to fail because it can't pump enough blood to the whole body, one of the compensations that happens is the hearts, since it can't pump efficiently as a muscle and the pump function decreases, it begins to dilate.  It begins to enlarge.