Let's discuss two standard medical abbreviations today. These abbreviations describe different cardiovascular conditions and can be found in one text.
Definitions
CHD stands for coronary heart disease and CHF stands for chronic heart failure (although there is a nuance that we will cover later). These conditions affect the heart in different ways:
Coronary heart disease develops when the coronary arteries become narrowed or blocked due to plaque buildup, and the heart tissues do not get enough blood supply and enough oxygen. Clinical presentations include silent ischemia, angina pectoris, acute coronary syndromes (unstable angina, myocardial infarction), and sudden cardiac death.
This condition is also called coronary artery disease and ischemic heart disease, the last name being the most meaningful because it refers to the etiology.
Chronic heart failure is a condition characterized by impaired ventricular filling or ejection of blood to the systemic circulation. The ventricles can be involved together or separately. Basically, the heart becomes too weak or stiff to pump blood effectively. Clinical presentations include dyspnea, edemas, chest pains, weakness, and low exercise tolerance.
Heart failure can be associated with liver or kidney damage, it can lead to pulmonary hypertension, heart arrhythmias, heart valve disease, and sudden cardiac arrest.
The nuance
The abbreviation CHF stands for both chronic heart failure and congestive heart failure. Whatever you google, these are not synonyms!
Here is a universal definition of heart failure from the American Heart Failure Society:
Heart failure is a clinical syndrome with symptoms and or signs caused by a structural and/or functional cardiac abnormality and corroborated by elevated natriuretic peptide levels and or objective evidence of pulmonary or systemic congestion.
So you can see that heart failure is not always associated with congestion, although it is very common. Also, congestive heart failure can be both acute and chronic. Partially, the American Heart Failure Society insisted on removing the word "congestive" from "heart failure" to focus the attention of physicians on all the other signs and symptoms associated with this condition.
Another nuance is that chronic heart failure and coronary heart disease are interconnected. Chronic heart failure can develop over time due to coronary heart disease since the cardiac muscle weakens with reduced oxygen supply.
Practical tips for translators and writers
If you are a translator and work in a CAT tool, I highly recommend adding these terms and abbreviations to your termbases to avoid mistranslation.
If you are a medical writer, you might want to use the term ischemic heart disease (ISH) or CAD (coronary artery disease) instead of CHD to avoid confusion.
