Drug News Blood pressure drug doesn’t help heart failure patients
By Jimmy Downs
Nov 12, 2008 - 8:11:53 AM
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Wednesday November 12, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) --The
blood pressure medication Avapro, marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and
Sanofi-Aventis, showed no better effectiveness than usual care in treating a
type of heart failure that mostly affects women and the elderly, according to a
new study.
The 4.5-year study did find a small advantage with
Avapro: it was associated with reduced risk deaths from any cause and
hospitalization for cardiovascular events including heart attacks, strokes,
heart failure, unstable angina or arrhythmia compared with usual care. But the
reduction was still insignificant statistically.
Researchers hoped that Avapro could better reduce the
incidence of death and serious heart problems than drugs currently used in the
study population.
"We were particularly disappointed because we still
have large numbers of patients that still don't have a good treatment,"
Dr. Barry Massie coauthor of the study from the University of California, San
Francisco was quoted by Reuters as saying.
Massie presented his study at the American Heart
Association scientific meeting on Tuesday.
The study involved 4,128-patients with the type of heart
failure in which the heart is in good shape and seemingly works normally, but
the patients still experience symptoms like fluid retention, shortness of
breath and swelling.
This type of heart failure affects 5.3 million Americans,
but no specific therapy can be used to treat the condition, Massie said.
In most cases, patients were given drugs like
blood pressure medicines and diuretics to treat symptoms like high blood pressure
and fluid retention respectively.
Among the study subjects, a third was older than 75, 60
percent female and more than half had high blood pressure, the study showed.
Avapro also known as irbesartan is a member of a class of
blood pressure medications called angiotensin II receptor blockers or
ARBS.
The drug was used because the
majority of the patients had high blood pressure.
Other types of blood pressure drugs have already failed
to help patients with this type of heart failure. So the results of the study
were not particularly surprising, the researchers said.
Heart failure can be caused by a wide range
of factors including high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease, valvular heart disease, diabetes, stroke,
obesity and lifestyle risk factors such as smoking, physical inactivity and
fatty food intake.