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©2013 UpToDate ® Print Email Effect of increasing afterload on cardiac function Curves relating stroke volume or cardiac to afterload or systemic vascular resistance (SVR) in normal subjects and those with heart failure and increasing degrees of ventricular dysfunction. Increasing afterload has little acute effect in normal subjects but becomes progressively more limiting on cardiac output in HF. Even though the effect is small with mild HF, lowering afterload is still important over the long-term because it slows the rate of loss of myocardial function.