[Comment] Acute heart failure in Africa: new causes, unchanged outcomes

AI Summary

The THESUS-HF study highlighted that acute heart failure in sub-Saharan Africa largely affects young patients with a high incidence of non-ischaemic diseases such as hypertensive and rheumatic heart diseases. Despite new causes, the prognosis for acute heart failure remains poor in the region.

More than 15 years ago, the original Sub-Saharan Africa Survey of Heart Failure (THESUS-HF) provided one of the first prospective, multinational descriptions of acute heart failure in sub-Saharan Africa.1 THESUS-HF found that patients with acute heart failure in sub-Saharan Africa were young, with near-equal incidence in men and women, that incidence was driven overwhelmingly by non-ischaemic disease, especially hypertensive and rheumatic heart diseases, and that short-term prognosis was poor.1 The study reframed heart failure in Africa as a distinct clinical entity rather than a footnote to high-income cohorts.