# Topics and Trends in Most Cited Heart Failure Treatment and Management Papers, Class of 2026

*Canonical URL: https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/heart-failure-treatment-and-management/2026*

## 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.

## At a glance

| Fact | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Field | Heart Failure Treatment and Management |
| Cohort label | Class of 2026 (2024 publications) |
| Papers analyzed | 6,978 |
| Papers ranked | 20 |
| Top topics in ranked papers | Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, Obesity, GLP-1 receptor agonist, Cardiovascular death, Semaglutide |
| Publication window | Jan 1, 2024 – Dec 31, 2024 |
| Eligibility | Research articles; reviews excluded |
| Citation window | 18 months post-publication |
| 18m citation range | 59–726 |
| Data source | OpenAlex · Retrieved Jul 2026 |
| License | CC BY 4.0 |

## Rankings

| Rank | Title | Authors | Corresponding authors | Affiliation | Journal | 18m citations | DOI |
| ---: | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---: | --- |
| 1 | Tirzepatide for Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction and Obesity | Milton Packer, Michael R Zile, Christopher M Kramer, Seth J Baum, Sheldon E Litwin, Venu Menon, Junbo Ge, Govinda J Weerakkody, Yang Ou, Mathijs C Bunck, Karla C Hurt, Masahiro Murakami, Barry A Borlaug, SUMMIT Trial Study Group | Milton Packer | Baylor University Medical Center, United States | New England Journal of Medicine | 726 | 10.1056/nejmoa2410027 |
| 2 | Finerenone in Heart Failure with Mildly Reduced or Preserved Ejection Fraction | Scott D Solomon, John J V McMurray, Muthiah Vaduganathan, Brian Claggett, Pardeep S Jhund, Akshay S Desai, Alasdair D Henderson, Carolyn S P Lam, Bertram Pitt, Michele Senni, Sanjiv J Shah, Adriaan A Voors, Faiez Zannad, Imran Zainal Abidin, Marco Antonio Alcocer-Gamba, John J Atherton, Johann Bauersachs, Ma Chang-Sheng, Chern-En Chiang, Ovidiu Chioncel, Vijay Chopra, Josep Comin-Colet, Gerasimos Filippatos, Cândida Fonseca, Grzegorz Gajos, Sorel Goland, Eva Goncalvesova, Seokmin Kang, Tzvetana Katova, Mikhail N Kosiborod, Gustavs Latkovskis, Alex Pui-Wai Lee, Gerard C M Linssen, Guillermo Llamas-Esperón, Vyacheslav Mareev, Felipe A Martinez, Vojtěch Melenovský, Béla Merkely, Savina Nodari, Mark C Petrie, Clara Inés Saldarriaga, Jose Francisco Kerr Saraiva, Naoki Sato, Morten Schou, Kavita Sharma, Richard Troughton, Jacob A Udell, Heikki Ukkonen, Orly Vardeny, Subodh Verma, Dirk von Lewinski, Leonid Voronkov, Mehmet Birhan Yilmaz, Shelley Zieroth, James Lay-Flurrie, Ilse van Gameren, Flaviana Amarante, Peter Kolkhof, Prabhakar Viswanathan, FINEARTS-HF Committees and Investigators | Scott D Solomon | Brigham and Women's Hospital, United Kingdom | New England Journal of Medicine | 549 | 10.1056/nejmoa2407107 |
| 3 | Semaglutide in Patients with Obesity-Related Heart Failure and Type 2 Diabetes | Mikhail N Kosiborod, Mark C Petrie, Barry A Borlaug, Javed Butler, Melanie J Davies, G Kees Hovingh, Dalane W Kitzman, Daniél V Møller, Marianne B Treppendahl, Subodh Verma, Thomas J Jensen, Karoline Liisberg, Marie L Lindegaard, Walter Abhayaratna, Fozia Z Ahmed, Tuvia Ben-Gal, Vijay Chopra, Justin A Ezekowitz, Michael Fu, Hiroshi Ito, Małgorzata Lelonek, Vojtěch Melenovský, Bela Merkely, Julio Núñez, Eduardo Perna, Morten Schou, Michele Senni, Kavita Sharma, Peter van der Meer, Dirk Von Lewinski, Dennis Wolf, Sanjiv J Shah, STEP-HFpEF DM Trial Committees and Investigators | Mikhail N Kosiborod | Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute, United States | New England Journal of Medicine | 388 | 10.1056/nejmoa2313917 |
| 4 | Semaglutide versus placebo in people with obesity-related heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: a pooled analysis of the STEP-HFpEF and STEP-HFpEF DM randomised trials | Javed Butler, Sanjiv J Shah, Mark C Petrie, Barry A Borlaug, Steen Z Abildstrøm, Melanie J Davies, G Kees Hovingh, Dalane W Kitzman, Daniél Vega Møller, Subodh Verma, Mette Nygaard Einfeldt, Marie L Lindegaard, Søren Rasmussen, Walter Abhayaratna, Fozia Z Ahmed, Tuvia Ben-Gal, Vijay Chopra, Justin A Ezekowitz, Michael Fu, Hiroshi Ito, Małgorzata Lelonek, Vojtěch Melenovský, Bela Merkely, Julio Núñez, Eduardo Perna, Morten Schou, Michele Senni, Kavita Sharma, Peter van der Meer, Dirk Von Lewinski, Dennis Wolf, Mikhail N Kosiborod, STEP-HFpEF Trial Committees and Investigators | Mikhail Kosiborod | Baylor Scott & White Research Institute, United States | The Lancet | 226 | 10.1016/s0140-6736(24)00469-0 |
| 5 | 2023 Focused Update of the 2021 ESC Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Acute and Chronic Heart Failure | Authors/Task Force Members:, Theresa A McDonagh, Marco Metra, Marianna Adamo, Roy S Gardner, Andreas Baumbach, Michael Böhm, Haran Burri, Javed Butler, Jelena Čelutkienė, Ovidiu Chioncel, John G F Cleland, Maria Generosa Crespo-Leiro, Dimitrios Farmakis, Martine Gilard, Stephane Heymans, Arno W Hoes, Tiny Jaarsma, Ewa A Jankowska, Mitja Lainscak, Carolyn S P Lam, Alexander R Lyon, John J V McMurray, Alexandre Mebazaa, Richard Mindham, Claudio Muneretto, Massimo Francesco Piepoli, Susanna Price, Giuseppe M C Rosano, Frank Ruschitzka, Anne Kathrine Skibelund, ESC Scientific Document Group | Theresa A. McDonagh, Marco Metra | United Kingdom., United Kingdom | European Journal of Heart Failure | 222 | 10.1002/ejhf.3024 |
| 6 | Semaglutide versus placebo in patients with heart failure and mildly reduced or preserved ejection fraction: a pooled analysis of the SELECT, FLOW, STEP-HFpEF, and STEP-HFpEF DM randomised trials | Mikhail N Kosiborod, John Deanfield, Richard Pratley, Barry A Borlaug, Javed Butler, Melanie J Davies, Scott S Emerson, Steven E Kahn, Dalane W Kitzman, Ildiko Lingvay, Kenneth W Mahaffey, Mark C Petrie, Jorge Plutzky, Søren Rasmussen, Cecilia Rönnbäck, Sanjiv J Shah, Subodh Verma, Peter E Weeke, A Michael Lincoff, SELECT, FLOW, STEP-HFpEF, and STEP-HFpEF DM Trial Committees and Investigators | Mikhail Kosiborod | Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute, United States | The Lancet | 219 | 10.1016/s0140-6736(24)01643-x |
| 7 | Semaglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with obesity and prevalent heart failure: a prespecified analysis of the SELECT trial | John Deanfield, Subodh Verma, Benjamin M Scirica, Steven E Kahn, Scott S Emerson, Donna Ryan, Ildiko Lingvay, Helen M Colhoun, Jorge Plutzky, Mikhail N Kosiborod, G Kees Hovingh, Søren Hardt-Lindberg, Ofir Frenkel, Peter E Weeke, Søren Rasmussen, Assen Goudev, Chim C Lang, Miguel Urina-Triana, Mikko Pietilä, A Michael Lincoff, SELECT Trial Investigators | John Deanfield | University College London, United Kingdom | The Lancet | 180 | 10.1016/s0140-6736(24)01498-3 |
| 8 | 2024 Clinical practice guidelines for Chronic heart failure | А. S. Galyavich, S. N. Tereshchenko, Т. Э. Имаев, F. T. Ageev, D. M. Aronov, G. P. Arutyunov, Yu. L. Begrambekova, Yu. N. Belenkov, S. А. Boytsov, M. G. Bubnova, Yu. A. Vasyuk, S. V. Villevalde, Н. Г. Виноградова, А. А. Гарганеева, G. E. Gendlin, S. R. Gilyarevsky, М. Г. Глезер, S. V. Gautier, Yu. I. Grinstein, T. V. Dovzhenko, О. М. Драпкина, D. V. Duplyakov, И. В. Жиров, Д А Затейщиков, Н. Э. Звартау, O. B. Irtyuga, Zhanna Kobalava, Н. А. Козиолова, A. V. Koroteev, Р. А. Либис, Yu. M. Lopatin, V. Yu. Mareev, Yu. V. Mareev, С.Т. Мацкеплишвили, Е. Н. Михайлов, S. N. Nasonova, O. Yu. Narusov, S. V. Nedogoda, А. О. Недошивин, А. Г. Овчинников, Yа. A. Orlova, Н. Б. Перепеч, N. V. Pogosova, E. M. Rimskaya, A. N. Samko, М. А. Саидова, O. V. Sapelnikov, А. А. Сафиуллина, M. Yu. Sitnikova, A. A. Skvortsov, V. V. Skibitskiy, О. В. Стукалова, E. I. Tarlovskaya, А. С. Терещенко, А. И. Чесникова, P. A. Fedotov, И. В. Фомин, Н. Р. Хасанов, А. О. Шевченко, И. И. Шапошник, M. A. Shariya, Е. V. Shlyakhto, I. S. Yavelov, S. S. Yakushin | А. S. Galyavich | Russian Society of Cardiology, Russia | Russian Journal of Cardiology | 143 | 10.15829/1560-4071-2024-6162 |
| 9 | 2024 ACC Expert Consensus Decision Pathway for Treatment of Heart Failure With Reduced Ejection Fraction | Thomas M Maddox, James L Januzzi, Larry A Allen, Khadijah Breathett, Sara Brouse, Javed Butler, Leslie L Davis, Gregg C Fonarow, Nasrien E Ibrahim, JoAnn Lindenfeld, Frederick A Masoudi, Shweta R Motiwala, Estefania Oliveros, Mary Norine Walsh, Alan Wasserman, Clyde W Yancy, Quentin R Youmans | Thomas M Maddox | Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute, United States | Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 129 | 10.1016/j.jacc.2023.12.024 |
| 10 | Effects of tirzepatide on circulatory overload and end-organ damage in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction and obesity: a secondary analysis of the SUMMIT trial | Barry A Borlaug, Michael R Zile, Christopher M Kramer, Seth J Baum, Karla Hurt, Sheldon E Litwin, Masahiro Murakami, Yang Ou, Navneet Upadhyay, Milton Packer | Barry A. Borlaug | Mayo Clinic, United States | Nature Medicine | 108 | 10.1038/s41591-024-03374-z |
| 11 | Effect of Semaglutide on Cardiac Structure and Function in Patients With Obesity-Related Heart Failure | Scott D Solomon, John W Ostrominski, Xiaowen Wang, Sanjiv J Shah, Barry A Borlaug, Javed Butler, Melanie J Davies, Dalane W Kitzman, Subodh Verma, Steen Z Abildstrøm, Mette Nygaard Einfeldt, Søren Rasmussen, Walter P Abhayaratna, Fozia Z Ahmed, Tuvia Ben-Gal, Vijay Chopra, Hiroshi Ito, Bela Merkely, Julio Núñez, Michele Senni, Peter van der Meer, Dennis Wolf, Mark C Petrie, Mikhail N Kosiborod, STEP-HFpEF Trial Committees and Investigators | Scott D. Solomon | Brigham and Women's Hospital, United States | Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 94 | 10.1016/j.jacc.2024.08.021 |
| 12 | Effects of Semaglutide on Heart Failure Outcomes in Diabetes and Chronic Kidney Disease in the FLOW Trial | Richard E Pratley, Katherine R Tuttle, Peter Rossing, Søren Rasmussen, Vlado Perkovic, Olav Wendelboe Nielsen, Johannes F E Mann, Richard J MacIsaac, Mikhail N Kosiborod, Zdravko Kamenov, Thomas Idorn, Marco Bo Hansen, Samy Hadjadj, George Bakris, Florian M M Baeres, Kenneth W Mahaffey, FLOW Trial Committees and Investigators | Richard E. Pratley | AdventHealth Translational Research Institute, United States | Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 86 | 10.1016/j.jacc.2024.08.004 |
| 13 | Efficacy and Safety of Dapagliflozin in Patients With Acute Heart Failure | Zachary L Cox, Sean P Collins, Gabriel A Hernandez, A Thomas McRae, Beth T Davidson, Kirkwood Adams, Mark Aaron, Luke Cunningham, Cathy A Jenkins, Christopher J Lindsell, Frank E Harrell, Christina Kampe, Karen F Miller, William B Stubblefield, JoAnn Lindenfeld | Zachary L. Cox | Lipscomb University, United States | Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 78 | 10.1016/j.jacc.2024.02.009 |
| 14 | Inflammation in Obesity-Related HFpEF | Subodh Verma, Mark C Petrie, Barry A Borlaug, Javed Butler, Melanie J Davies, Dalane W Kitzman, Sanjiv J Shah, Cecilia Rönnbäck, Steen Z Abildstrøm, Karoline Liisberg, Dennis Wolf, Dirk von Lewinski, Malgorzata Lelonek, Vojtech Melenovsky, Michele Senni, Mikhail N Kosiborod, STEP-HFpEF Trial Committees and Investigators | Mikhail Kosiborod | University of Toronto, Canada | Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 64 | 10.1016/j.jacc.2024.08.028 |
| 15 | Inflammation in heart failure: pathophysiology and therapeutic strategies | Jacinthe Boulet, Vikas S Sridhar, Nadia Bouabdallaoui, Jean-Claude Tardif, Michel White | Michel White | Montreal Heart Institute, Canada | Inflammation Research | 63 | 10.1007/s00011-023-01845-6 |
| 16 | Indole-3-Propionic Acid Protects Against Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction | Yu-Chen Wang, Yen Chin Koay, Calvin Pan, Zhiqiang Zhou, Wilson Tang, Jennifer Wilcox, Xinmin S Li, Alexia Zagouras, Francine Marques, Hooman Allayee, Federico E Rey, David M Kaye, John F O'Sullivan, Stanley L Hazen, Yang Cao, Aldons J Lusis | Yu-Chen Wang | University of California, Los Angeles, United States | Circulation Research | 63 | 10.1161/circresaha.123.322381 |
| 17 | Semaglutide and NT-proBNP in Obesity-Related HFpEF | Mark C Petrie, Barry A Borlaug, Javed Butler, Melanie J Davies, Dalane W Kitzman, Sanjiv J Shah, Subodh Verma, Thomas Jon Jensen, Mette Nygaard Einfeldt, Karoline Liisberg, Eduardo Perna, Kavita Sharma, Justin A Ezekowitz, Michael Fu, Vojtěch Melenovský, Hiroshi Ito, Małgorzata Lelonek, Mikhail N Kosiborod, STEP-HFpEF Trial Committees and Investigators | Mikhail Kosiborod | University of Glasgow, United Kingdom | Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 63 | 10.1016/j.jacc.2024.04.022 |
| 18 | Finerenone and Kidney Outcomes in Patients With Heart Failure | Finnian R Mc Causland, Muthiah Vaduganathan, Brian L Claggett, Ian J Kulac, Akshay S Desai, Pardeep S Jhund, Alasdair D Henderson, Meike Brinker, Robert Perkins, Markus F Scheerer, Patrick Schloemer, Carolyn S P Lam, Michele Senni, Sanjiv J Shah, Adriaan A Voors, Faiez Zannad, Bertram Pitt, John J V McMurray, Scott D Solomon | Finnian R. Mc Causland | Brigham and Women's Hospital, United States | Journal of the American College of Cardiology | 62 | 10.1016/j.jacc.2024.10.091 |
| 19 | The traditional Chinese medicine Qiliqiangxin in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial | Iokfai Cheang, Wenming Yao, Yanli Zhou, Xu Zhu, Gehui Ni, Xinyi Lu, Shengen Liao, Rongrong Gao, Fang Zhou, Jiangang Shen, Alice Yeuk Lan Leung, Meng Jiang, Hong Kong, Ling Bai, Ailiman Mahemuti, Haitao Yuan, Yu-Gang Dong, Chun-Ka Wong, Qinghua Xu, Gaoxing Zhang, Jianhua Wu, Qi Lu, Junhai Zhang, Chunxi Cha, Qian Ren, Lu Fu, Bing Wang, Yongshun Xu, Houxiang Hu, Jing Dong, Zhuo Shang, Chaoping Yu, Songsen Li, Chen Yao, Lingling Gao, Haifeng Zhang, Anthony Rosenzweig, Zhenhua Jia, Xinli Li, QUEST Trial Committees and Investigators | Haifeng Zhang, Anthony Rosenzweig, Zhenhua Jia, Xinli Li | First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, China | Nature Medicine | 60 | 10.1038/s41591-024-03169-2 |
| 20 | Ferric carboxymaltose and exercise capacity in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction and iron deficiency: the FAIR-HFpEF trial | Stephan von Haehling, Wolfram Doehner, Ruben Evertz, Tania Garfias-Veitl, Carlotta Derad, Monika Diek, Mahir Karakas, Ralf Birkemeyer, Gerasimos Fillippatos, Mitja Lainscak, Javed Butler, Piotr Ponikowski, Michael Böhm, Tim Friede, Stefan D Anker | Stephan von Haehling, Stefan D. Anker | University Medical Center Goettingen, Germany | European Heart Journal | 59 | 10.1093/eurheartj/ehae479 |

## Topic trends

### 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 year*

## Cite this ranking

```
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 2026-07-14.

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
```