Heart failure vs heart attack: Doctors explain why you should know the difference

Kochi: A medical experts’ meet in Kochi has called for increasing public awareness on the rising incidence of heart failure in the country. The 11th annual Conference of the Heart Failure Association of India (HFAI-2025) at Hotel Crowne Plaza focuses on the latest breakthroughs in diagnosing and treating heart failure, often mistaken as ‘heart attack’.

Dr D Prabhakar, president-elect of the World Heart Federation, inaugurated the event. He highlighted the growing prevalence of heart failure in India and stressed the need for increased public awareness regarding the condition.

"There is a stark lack of awareness about heart failure and how it differs from a heart attack,” he said. “Heart failure is not a sudden event like a heart attack; rather, it’s the weakening of the heart’s ability to pump blood efficiently. Heart attacks, on the other hand, occur when the arteries supplying blood to the heart muscle are blocked, starving the muscle of oxygen and causing it to die.”

“Conditions like cardiomyopathy, congenital heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, kidney ailments, and abnormal heart rhythms can also damage the heart and lead to heart failure,” he said.

Emphasising the conference theme, ‘Personalising heart failure therapy,’ Dr Abraham Oommen, president of HFAI, said each case of heart failure is unique, and treatment approaches must be tailored to individual patient needs.

He stressed the need for early diagnosis, therapy implementation, physician education, and the ambitious target of establishing 1,000 heart failure clinics in the country.

A consensus document that guides physicians in the diagnosis and management of heart failure was released at the function.

The meeting discussed the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and advanced imaging, such as cardiac MRI and CT scans, in advancing the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure.

The conference will host 35 scientific sessions, including case-based discussions, keynote lectures, interactive workshops, and postgraduate training sessions.

The conference is being organised in collaboration with the Heart Failure Society of America, the European Society for Heart Failure, the Asian Heart Society, the Society for Heart Failure and Transplantation, and JCVA.

The event has attracted more than 15 international faculty, 125 national heart failure experts, and over 750 cardiologists across India.