Animal models of heart failure: what is new?

Heart failure is the major cause of mortality in Western countries. Medical treatment of heart failure is associated with 50% survival at 5 years. Experimental models are required to better understand the progression of the disease and elaborate new therapy. Heart transplantation, left ventricular assist devices, artificial hearts, and cardiac bioassist techniques require animal models for testing and optimizing before they are implemented on human patients. The perfect model of heart failure that reproduces every aspect of the natural disease does not exist. Acute and chronic heart failure models have been developed to reproduce different aspect of the pathology.