The findings, from the Systolic Heart Failure Treatment with the If Inhibitor Ivabradine Trial (SHIFT), showed that patients with chronic systolic heart failure who added ivabradine (Procoralan, Servier) to the medications they were already taking showed a significant 18% drop in the composite rate of cardiovascular death or heart-failure hospitalization, compared with a placebo control group, over a period of about two years.

And an update to the European guidelines for use of device therapy in heart failure extends its strongest, most evidence-based recommendation—class I, level of evidence A—for use of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) from the traditional NYHA class 3-4 indication to include patients with "mild" NYHA class 2 heart failure.

What does this mean for the future of heart-failure treatment?

Join Drs Melissa Walton-Shirley, Clyde Yancy, and Cecilia Linde as they talk about the tantalizing results of SHIFT and how the new European guidelines may be setting a dangerous new precedent.