Planning for future success in pediatric heart failure and cardiac transplantation

Over the past 3 decades, there have been tremendous advancements in the care of children with heart failure and after cardiac transplantation. To spur future knowledge and progress, investigators with interests in cardiomyopathy, heart failure, and transplantation discussed new directions and challenges to research in these areas at the Third International Conference on Cardiomyopathy in Children. The identification of predictors of myocardial recovery and transplant-free survival was emphasized as an important focus of research. A priority was the development of registries, databases, and trials that are able to span the continuum of heart failure care and enable more powerful and cost-effective studies to be implemented. The improvements in survival of children with heart failure as well as longer survival after transplant stimulated discussions on the need for quality of life measures and patient-centered outcomes to be incorporated into future research aims so that beneficial interventions can be realized. Current literature and key points implementing these future aims and directions are discussed further in this commentary.