Co-morbidities in heart failure and improving concordance with treatments Co-morbidities in heart failure and improving concordance with treatments

‘One in five patients with COPD has unrecognised heart failure and between one in five and one in ten patients with heart failure has COPD’, said Prof Arno Hoes (Utrecht, Netherlands) in describing the challenge of co-morbidities faced by GPs. The prognosis of patients with both heart failure and COPD is significantly worse than with either disease alone. The old dogma that B blockers should not be used in patients with COPD was also challenged. ‘Selective B blockers do not affect lung function in COPD patients without evidence of reversibility’. B blockers should be considered for patients with heart failure to improve functional status and prognosis. The importance of encouraging compliance in patients with heart failure was also considered. Resources such as heartfailurematters.org can be useful sources of information for patients, families and their carers.

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