Mudd James O, Kass David A
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, 720 Rutland Avenue, Ross 835, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA.
Nature. 2008 Feb 21;451(7181):919-28. doi: 10.1038/nature06798.
Heart failure, or congestive heart failure, is a condition in which the heart cannot supply the body's tissues with enough blood. The result is a cascade of changes that lead to severe fatigue, breathlessness and, ultimately, death. In the past quarter century, much progress has been made in understanding the molecular and cellular processes that contribute to heart failure, leading to the development of effective therapies. Despite this, chronic heart failure remains a major cause of illness and death. And because the condition becomes more common with increasing age, the number of affected individuals is rising with the rapidly ageing global population. New treatments that target disease mechanisms at the cellular and whole-organ level are needed to halt and reverse the devastating consequences of this disease.
心力衰竭，即充血性心力衰竭，是一种心脏无法为身体组织提供足够血液的病症。其结果是一系列导致严重疲劳、呼吸急促并最终导致死亡的变化。在过去的四分之一世纪里，在理解导致心力衰竭的分子和细胞过程方面取得了很大进展，从而促成了有效疗法的开发。尽管如此，慢性心力衰竭仍然是疾病和死亡的主要原因。而且由于这种病症随着年龄增长而变得更加常见，随着全球人口迅速老龄化，受影响个体的数量正在上升。需要在细胞和全器官水平上针对疾病机制的新疗法来阻止和扭转这种疾病的毁灭性后果。
