Heart Disease Diagnosis and Therapy

Across North America and worldwide, general internists render care to more than 60% of patients with cardiac problems. In this new edition of the warmly received Heart Disease Diagnosis and Therapy: A Practical Approach, Second Edition, M. Gabriel Khan, MD, concisely assembles in a reader-friendly format all the clinically useful information that internists need in both daily rounds and busy office practices to find correct clinical diagnoses and choose optimal pharmacologic therapies for their patients. The author stresses accurate diagnosis, giving virtually all diagnostic features, pathophysiologic implications, the prediction of risk stratification outcome, knowledge of the action of pharmacologic agents and their correct indications, and the advantages and disadvantages of interventional therapy. Highlights include a simplified method for recognition of, and a practical therapeutic approach to, arrhythmias, as well as a more logical approach to drug management of hypertension than that given by the Joint National Committee, instructive algorithms that simplify the diagnosis and treatment of syncope, and extensive diagnostic information on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Additional chapters offer in-depth coverage of valvular heart disease, practical guidance on how to best manage systolic and diastolic heart failure to prevent hospitalization and death, and instructive discussion of perioperative management of cardiac patients undergoing noncardiac surgery. A large number of illustrative electrocardiograms that help to clarify the most often misinterpreted of all cardiologic tests and extensive discussions of practical cardiovascular pharmacology complete this magisterial survey. Up-to-date and highly practical, Heart Disease Diagnosis and Therapy: A Practical Approach, Second Edition, makes quickly available to the internist, general practitioner, and resident in internal medicine all the information needed to practice clinical cardiology with assured competence and excellent results in heart patients.