Correctable cardiac failure.

The concept of reversible cardiac failure has hitherto been applicable mostly to rare instances of acute afflictions of the myocardium wherein cardiac compensation returns with the healing of the process. Recent strides in cardiac surgery have brought into focus a wide variety of conditions where operative removal of the cause of heart failure can successfully restore compensation. The concept of increased work of the heart-cardiac overload-is presented and classified with special reference to those forms where surgical removal of the cause of the overload is possible.Now, since surgical treatment of a patient in functional class IV need no longer entail risk of prohibitive mortality, a careful search is indicated in patients in a state of chronic cardiac failure, particularly in the younger age group, for a correctable factor or factors.