2016 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure: The Task Force for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Developed with the special contribution of the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the ESC

2016 ESC on Acute and Chronic H

Optimization of heart rate lowering therapy in hospitalized patients with heart failure: Insights from the Optimize Heart Failure Care Program

Background Hospitalization is an opportunity to optimize heart failure (HF) therapy. As optimal treatment for hospitalized HF patients in sinus rhythm with heart rate ≥ 70 bpm is unclear, we investigated the impact of combined beta-blocker (BB) and ivabradine versus BBs alone on short and longer term mortality and rehospitalization. Methods and results A retrospective analysis was performed on 370 hospitalized HF patients with heart rate ≥ 70 bpm (150 BB + ivabradine, 220 BB alone) in the Optimize Heart Failure Care Program in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, from October 2015 to April 2016. Results At 1 month, 3 months, 6 months and 12 months, there were fewer deaths, HF hospitalizations and overall hospitalizations in patients on BB + ivabradine vs BBs alone. At 12 months, all-cause mortality or HF hospitalization was significantly lower with BB + ivabradine than BBs (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 0.45 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.32–0.64, P < 0.0001). Significantly greater improvement was seen in quality of life (QOL) from admission to 12 months with BB + ivabradine vs BBs alone (P = 0.0001). With BB + ivabradine, significantly more patients achieved ≥ 50% target doses of BBs at 12 months than on admission (82.0% vs 66.6%, P = 0.0001), but the effect was non-significant with BBs alone. Conclusions Heart rate lowering therapy with BB + ivabradine started in hospitalized HF patients (heart rate ≥ 70 bpm) is associated with reduced overall mortality and re-hospitalization over the subsequent 12 months. A prospective randomized trial is needed to confirm the advantages of this strategy

2016 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure: The Task Force for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC)Developed with the special contribution of the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the ESC

ESC Guidelines on Acute and Chronic Heart Failur

Search for the standard model Higgs boson at LEP

The four LEP Collaborations, ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL, have collected a total of 2461 pb(-1) of e(+)e(-) collision data at centre-of-mass energies between 189 and 209 GeV. The data are used to search for the Standard Model Higgs boson. The search results of the four Collaborations are combined and examined in a likelihood test for their consistency with two hypotheses: the background hypothesis and the signal plus background hypothesis. The corresponding confidences have been computed as functions of the hypothetical Higgs boson mass. A lower bound of 114.4 GeV/c(2) is established, at the 95% confidence level, on the mass of the Standard Model Higgs boson. The LEP data are also used to set upper bounds on the HZZ coupling for various assumptions concerning the decay of the Higgs boson. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Precision Electroweak Measurements on the Z resonance.

We report on the final electroweak measurements performed with data taken at the Z resonance by the experiments operating at the electron–positron colliders SLC and LEP. The data consist of 17 million Z decays accumulated by the ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL experiments at LEP, and 600 thousand Z decays by the SLD experiment using a polarised beam at SLC. The measurements include cross-sections, forward–backward asymmetries and polarised asymmetries. The mass and width of the Z boson, mZ and ΓZ, and its couplings to fermions, for example the ρ parameter and the effective electroweak mixing angle for leptons, are precisely measured: The number of light neutrino species is determined to be 2.9840±0.0082, in agreement with the three observed generations of fundamental fermions. The results are compared to the predictions of the Standard Model (SM). At the Z-pole, electroweak radiative corrections beyond the running of the QED and QCD coupling constants are observed with a significance of five standard deviations, and in agreement with the Standard Model. Of the many Z-pole measurements, the forward–backward asymmetry in b-quark production shows the largest difference with respect to its SM expectation, at the level of 2.8 standard deviations. Through radiative corrections evaluated in the framework of the Standard Model, the Z-pole data are also used to predict the mass of the top quark, , and the mass of the W boson, . These indirect constraints are compared to the direct measurements, providing a stringent test of the SM. Using in addition the direct measurements of mt and mW, the mass of the as yet unobserved SM Higgs boson is predicted with a relative uncertainty of about 50% and found to be less than at 95% confidence level