[Cardiac insufficiency: what treatment? what dose? For which patients? Converting enzyme inhibitors and diuretics].

Diuretics were the first family of drugs to be used in cardiac failure. They improve symptoms but no randomised control trials show their efficacy in prolonging survival. The results of the recent RALES trial, however, provides evidence in favour of antialdosterone diuretics on survival in association with a loop diuretic and an angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor. At present, the legal requirements in France state that "the association of spironolactone and converting enzyme inhibitors is possible with low doses of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and diuretic hypokalaemiant; kalaemia and creatinine have to be monitored". "The association of hypokalaemia-inducing diuretics (loop diuretics, thiazides and similar: the association with this type of diuretic, rational and useful in certain patients, does not exclude the risk of hypo- or even hyperkalaemia, especially in renal failure and diabetes; it also imposes the monitoring of serum potassium and eventually of the electrocardiogram and, if necessary, to reconsider the treatment". Many points remain unclear concerning the value and harmlessness of the prescription of diuretics in asymptomatic left ventricular failure. In cases of diuretic resistance, the use of intravenous administration, the fragmentation of doses or the association of diuretics, may induce a diuretic response. Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors are the first line treatment of moderate and severe cardiac failure and in post-infarction left ventricular dysfunction. On the other hand, the value of this family of drugs in left ventricular failure and normal systolic function has not been demonstrated. Analysis of clinical practice shows an underprescription of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, both in number of patients and in dosage. The results of the recent ATLAS trial suggest that high doses of lisinopril improve morbidity related to cardiac failure and the combined morbi-mortality criterion. The results of this study incite the prescription of high rather than low doses of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor.