This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Farewell to the Foxglove?

Marcis T. Sodums, MD; Richard A. Walsh, MD; Robert A. O'Rourke, MD

JAMA. 1981;246(2):158-160.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

AFTER more than 200 years of clinical use, the role of digitalis therapy in the management of acute and chronic congestive heart failure and its effectiveness compared with vasodilator therapy is being questioned. This controversy results from the difficulty in demonstrating the salutary effect of digitalis on overall cardiac performance, although the positive inotropic effect of digitalis on left ventricular function, both in the normal and depressed ventricle, has been well established.^1,2 Accordingly, we will review the evidence for the beneficial effects of digitalis in acute (eg, myocardial infarction) and chronic heart failure and the relation between digitalis therapy and vasodilator therapy in these conditions.

Net cardiac pump performance results from the complex interaction of several opposing factors³ (Figure). Cardiac output is determined by the heart rate, left ventricular filling volume or preload, left ventricular afterload or resistance to left ventricular ejection (approximated by systolic blood pressure), and . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Cardiology Division, Department of Medicine, The University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio.

Footnotes
This article is one of a series sponsored by the American Heart Association.

Reprint requests to Cardiology Division, Department of Medicine, The University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX 78284 (Dr Sodums).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?