Heart failure (HF) is not a single disease, but a chronic and com- plex clinical syndrome in which the heart is unable to fill or pump the blood well because of structural and/or functional cardiac dis- orders [1]. This leads to a decreased cardiac output that is insuffi- cient to meet the body’s metabolic demands [2]. A number of diseases affecting the cardiovascular system can lead to HF [1], but the most common causes are coronary artery disease, hyper- tensive heart disease, valvular heart disease, tachyarrhythmia and idiopathic causes [1,3].
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