The incidence, ethiology and epidemyology of heart failure at admittance in emergency room

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Article Title:	The incidence, ethiology and epidemyology of heart failure at admittance in emergency room
Authors:	Radu Jipa1, Maria Puschita1,2
Affiliation:	1 Emergency Unit, Emergency Clinical County Hospital, Arad, Romania 2 “Vasile Goldis” Western University, Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy and Dental Medicine, Arad, Romania
Abstract:	Heart failure is a very common cause of presenting at Emergency Room (E.R.). In this study I have tried to establish the most reliable diagnostic criteria of heart failure in E.R., based on clinical and paraclinical grounds. The study was made on a group of unselected patients, arrived with dyspnoea at E.R., and had the following objectives: establishing of the heart failure prevalence; establishing the common causes of decompensation; establishing the clinical and paraclinical parameters; finding the other diseases that can produce dyspnoea; establishing the most reliable diagnostic criteria. We found the most frequent causes of acute heart failure in our area and the fact that the most accurate diagnostic tool to diagnose this disease, have to include echocardiography. Also, we found that the clinical criteria discover the smallest number of really sick patients. To improve the quality of medical services and gain time in establishing the diagnosis and initialising the treatment, we need to use either echocardiography in our investigations (difficult because of the technical limitations and low level of patient’s cooperation), or the use new methods (like NTproBNP, subject of another clinical study).
Keywords:	dyspnoea, heart failure, natriuretic peptides, NT pro-BNP
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*Correspondence:	Radu Jipa, MD, Unitatea de primire a urgenţelor, Spital Clinic Judeţean de Urgență Arad E-mail: r_jipa@yahoo.com