• Peter S Pang, Miguel Tavares, Sean P Collins, John G F Cleland, Judd Hollander, Markku Nieminen, Chadwick Miller, D Mark Courtney, J Douglas Kirk, Josep Masip, Alexander Parkhomenko, Cezar Macarie, W Frank Peacock, Jindrich Spinar, Richard Nowak, Dimitar Raev, Alan B Storrow, Vladimir Spisak, Ahmed Hamdy, Alexandre Mebazaa, Mihai Gheorghiade, and URGENT Investigators.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA. ppang@northwestern.edu
• Am J Ther. 2008 Jul 1;15(4):299-303.

BackgroundDyspnea is a key target in both clinical management and clinical trials of acute heart failure syndromes and its relief important to patients, clinicians, investigators, and regulatory approval agencies. Despite its importance, the impact of early therapy on dyspnea is not well known. The severity of dyspnea may also be influenced by the conditions under which it is measured (ie, sitting up or lying down). URGENT Dyspnea (Ularitide Global Evaluation in Acute Decompensated Heart Failure) is a prospective multicenter study designed to address these issues.Methods And ResultsConsenting adult patients with dyspnea secondary to acute heart failure syndromes are eligible. Patients must be interviewed within one hour of first physician evaluation, typically in an emergency department or acute care setting, with dyspnea assessed by the patient using both a 5-point Likert scale and 10-point visual analog scale in the sitting (60 degrees) and then supine (20 degrees ) position if symptomatically able. Improvement of dyspnea by change in Likert and visual analog scale scores at 6 h is the primary endpoint.ConclusionsTiming of dyspnea measurement and the conditions under which it is measured may influence dyspnea severity and this may have significant implications for future acute heart failure syndromes clinical trial design that target dyspnea.

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