Tackling change in heart failure management: hearts4heart CEO and expert cardiologist talk the essentials in Heart Failure Awareness Week

Leading charity hearts4heart is urging every Australian to be smart about their heart during the inaugural Heart Failure Awareness Week (June 27 – July 3).

Tanya Hall, CEO hearts4heart and cardiologist A/Prof John Amerena, Director of the Geelong Cardiology Research Unit and Director of the Heart Failure Programme at Barwon Health, joined Health Industry Hub to discuss the current reality for patients with heart failure and the launch of a new tool based on the European Society of Cardiologists (ESC) guidelines to assist GPs in addressing the paint points in heart failure diagnosis.

A/Prof Amerena said “Heart failure is underappreciated as we know that it has as bad or worse outcome than patients with cancer…by intervention we can really improve their outcome for long term health.”

A/Prof Amerena reflected on the novel medicines, diagnostics and medical devices that have the potential to transform the future management of heart failure, including sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2*) inhibitors and B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) cardiac test.

He said “After a hiatus of 10 or 15 years with no development of new therapies, we’ve now got these new therapies that really change the whole landscape for patients with heart failure with reduced function.”

Tanya and A/Prof Amerena shared their perspectives on the the evolving role of patient advocacy organisations in shaping medical research.

Tanya commented “Historically, individuals with heart failure have haven’t had the opportunity to be engaged with patient organisations like ours. Thus far, the consumer input into research has been very ad hoc, but I feel optimistic…”

Tanya concluded by sharing how hearts4heart aims to engage with the new government from an advocacy and policy perspective to drive the necessary changes.

*SGLT2 inhibitors currently marketed in Australia are dapagliflozin and empagliflozin. Brand names for dapagliflozin-containing products are Forxiga (jointly developed by AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS)), Qtern and Xigduo XR (AstraZeneca). Brand names for empagliflozin-containing products are Jardiance, Jardiamet and Glyxambi (Boehringer Ingelheim).