Can heart failure medications be used safely in children?
top Most heart failure medications have been very carefully studied in adults, but are not well studied in children. Based upon our understanding of heart failure, we can form a reasonably accurate picture of how the various heart failure medications ought to work in children, and base our therapies accordingly. In addition, many of the medications used for heart failure therapy are also used in children for other purposes, so that we do understand how to dose these medications, and what side effects are likely to develop. While this is not ideal, it is the best we are able to achieve at the present. Using informed estimates such as these appears better than the alternative approach of not treating children with any of the medications which we know to be effective in adults.
