Topics and Trends in Most Cited Heart Failure Treatment and Management Papers
Ranked by citations 18 months after publication
Class of 2026 (Papers Published in 2024)
What topics and trends defined most-cited Heart Failure Treatment and Management research in the Class of 2026?
HFpEF, obesity, GLP-1 agonists, and cardiovascular-death endpoints define the Class of 2026 heart failure cohort, with semaglutide and tirzepatide trials driving early citation weight. Obesity, GLP-1 therapy, type 2 diabetes, and BMI rose sharply from Class of 2025, while SGLT2 inhibitors, heart failure hospitalization, and natriuretic peptides receded among top-cited papers.
CorrespondingStephan von Haehling, Stefan D. AnkerInstitutionUniversity Medical Center Goettingen, Germany
Heart failure with preserved ejection fractionIron deficiencyFerric carboxymaltoseIron supplementation6-minute walk distanceExercise capacityDouble-blind randomized controlled trialPlaceboserum ferritintransferrin saturationNew York Heart Association functional classpatient global assessmentPatient-reported outcomesSerious adverse eventsAdverse eventsFAIR-HFpEF trialMulticenter trialPrimary endpointSecondary endpointsPatient recruitmentElderly patientsSex differencesBiomarkersFunctional Capacity Assessmentanemia in heart failureclinical trial powerSymptomatic heart failureIron homeostasis
Topic trends
Dominant research themes and year-over-year shifts in Heart Failure Treatment and Management
What Topics Define the Class of 2026?
The informative word cloud across the 50 highest 18-month-cited heart failure treatment and management papers reveals a field centered on heart failure phenotypes, obesity-related HFpEF, and cardiometabolic trial endpoints—not generic trial-design terminology. Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction leads at 26 of 50 papers (normalized frequency 0.52), followed by left ventricular ejection fraction (22 papers, 0.44). Cardiovascular death (19 papers, 0.38), obesity (17 papers, 0.34), and GLP-1 receptor agonist (15 papers, 0.30) cluster tightly with semaglutide (11 papers, 0.22), obesity-related HFpEF (8 papers, 0.16), and the STEP-HFpEF trial (8 papers, 0.16), reflecting the citation impact of tirzepatide and semaglutide programs in obesity-associated HFpEF. Heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (14 papers, 0.28), mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (13 papers, 0.26), and guideline-directed medical therapy (13 papers, 0.26) remain prominent alongside finerenone and nonsteroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (7 papers each, 0.14). Mid-sized terms emphasize functional status—New York Heart Association functional class, 6-minute walk distance, KCCQ Clinical Summary Score—and worsening heart failure events, body mass index, and type 2 diabetes. SGLT2 inhibitors appear at reduced prominence (9 papers, 0.18) after informativeness filtering, while natriuretic peptides, acute decompensated heart failure, and all-cause mortality anchor prognostic and hospitalization framing across the cohort.
Leading research themes
How Did Topics Shift from the Class of 2025 to the Class of 2026?
Comparing normalized concept frequencies between the Class of 2025 (2023 publications) and Class of 2026 (2024 publications) cohorts shows a reorientation of early-high-impact heart failure research toward obesity, incretin-based therapy, and hard cardiovascular endpoints. Obesity exhibited the largest gain (+0.22 normalized frequency; 6 versus 17 papers), followed by GLP-1 receptor agonist (+0.20; 5 versus 15), type 2 diabetes (+0.16; 6 versus 14), body mass index (+0.16; 3 versus 11), and cardiovascular death (+0.14; 12 versus 19). The topic evolution card underscores that Class of 2026 bars extend furthest for obesity, GLP-1 receptor agonist, cardiovascular death, and New York Heart Association functional class—topics aligned with SUMMIT, STEP-HFpEF DM, and related obesity-HFpEF trial programs. Finerenone and nonsteroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist each appeared in 7 Class of 2026 papers and were absent from the Class of 2025 cohort (+0.14 each), alongside rising semaglutide, STEP-HFpEF trial, and weight-loss terminology. Conversely, SGLT2 inhibitors showed the steepest decline (−0.24; 21 versus 9 papers), reflecting reduced dominance of SGLT2 inhibitor–focused papers among top-cited 2024 work after the prior cohort’s guideline and trial surge. Heart failure hospitalization (−0.12), natriuretic peptides (−0.10), and diuretic therapy (−0.10) also receded, while HFpEF and left ventricular ejection fraction remained stable at the top. Together, these shifts suggest that the most-cited 2024 papers emphasize obesity-related HFpEF pharmacotherapy and cardiovascular-death endpoints over SGLT2 inhibitor expansion and hospitalization-centric biomarker studies.
How topics shifted year over yearMethodology
PRI identifies high-impact research using a transparent, topic-agnostic framework applied consistently across scientific domains. Bibliographic records are drawn from OpenAlex, including publication dates, citation relationships, and document types.
This ranking covers the Class of 2026 cohort: journal articles published in 2024. Reviews and other non-article document types are excluded to ensure comparability.
Research impact is quantified with an 18-month post-publication citation window—the number of citing works published within 18 months of each paper's publication date. This metric captures early impact while controlling for publication age.
An LLM-based relevance classifier then reviews each candidate's title and abstract to confirm substantive alignment with the target domain. Only papers classified as relevant appear in the final ranking.
Zheng Su, Tinsley Li, Thematic Shifts in Early-High-Impact Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics Research: A Bibliometric and Semantic Analysis. bioRxiv 2026.07.04.736459; doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.04.736459
Pepkio Research Index (PRI). Topics and Trends in Most Cited Heart Failure Treatment and Management Papers, Class of 2026. https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/heart-failure-treatment-and-management/2026. Accessed 2026-07-13.
Zheng Su, Tinsley Li, Thematic Shifts in Early-High-Impact Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics Research: A Bibliometric and Semantic Analysis. bioRxiv 2026.07.04.736459; doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.04.736459