RELAX-AHF: Poor diuretic response associated with worse clinical outcomes

Serelaxin has neutral effect on diuretic response

2014-05-17

(Press-News.org) Athens, 17 May 2014: Poor diuretic response is associated with worse in-hospital and post-discharge clinical outcomes, results of the RELAX-AHF trial reveal. The study also found that serelaxin has a neutral effect on diuretic response.

These novel data from the RELAX-AHF trial were presented by lead author Professor Adriaan A. Voors at the Heart Failure Congress 2014, held 17-20 May in Athens, Greece. The Congress is the main annual meeting of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology. RELAX-AHF was a double blind, placebo-controlled trial of 1161 patients admitted to hospital with acute heart failure. Patients were randomised to receive 48-hour infusions of placebo or serelaxin (30µg/kg per day) within 16 hours from presentation. Primary analysis of the study showed that serelaxin reduced dyspnoea and decreased 180 day mortality.1

The current substudy, presented for the first time today, had two aims. The first was to confirm preliminary findings of the PROTECT trial, which found that poor diuretic response is a serious clinical problem.2 The second was to investigate whether the beneficial effects of serelaxin discovered in the primary analysis were related to improvement of the diuretic response.

Diuretic response was defined as kilograms of weight loss per 40mg of the loop diuretic furosemide. Professor Voors said: "Congestion is the main problem in patients with acute decompensated heart failure and we give them loop diuretics to get rid of the excess fluid. Patients who respond to the loop diuretic have diuresis and lose weight. But a substantial proportion do not respond to the diuretic, do not diurese and do not lose weight."

He added: "Diuretic response could be measured by urinary output but when patients no longer need a catheter it is difficult to capture how much fluid they have lost. We therefore used weight loss as a more objective and reliable measurement of diuretic response. The more weight patients lost per mg of furosemide given, the better their diuretic response."

The study found that diuretic response was an important clinical problem, confirming preliminary results from the PROTECT trial. Patients with a poor diuretic response had less dyspnoea relief (p=0.0001) and a higher risk of cardiovascular death or rehospitalisation for heart failure or renal failure through day 60 (p END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

RELAX-AHF and PROTECT studies find targeting WHF may reduce readmissions and save lives

2014-05-17

Athens, 17 May 2014: Worsening symptoms and signs of heart failure (WHF) in patients admitted to a hospital is a common sign of treatment failure and can lead to long-term consequences for the patient, including longer length of hospitalization and a higher risk for readmission and death, according to a late-breaking study (RELAX-AHF, PROTECT) presented in Athens at the ESC's Heart Failure Congress 2014 Heart failure is the most common reason for admission to hospital in people over 65 years old and affects millions of people each year. Research has shown that the outcomes ...

Negative iron balance predicts acute heart failure survival

2014-05-17

Athens, 17 May 2014: Negative iron balance predicts survival in patients with acute heart failure, according to research presented for the first time today at the Heart Failure Congress 2014 in Athens, Greece. The Congress is the main annual meeting of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology. Professor Ewa Jankowska, first author of the study, said: "Patients with acute heart failure have a major collapse in homeostasis. Iron is a key micronutrient that is required for the maintenance of homeostasis. Iron is needed for cellular metabolism ...

Biomarker test for Peripartum Cardiomyopathy could help reduce death after giving birth

2014-05-17

Athens, 17 May 2014: Cardiologists have discovered biomarkers that can be used to develop a screening test to detect Peripartum Cardiomyopathy (PPCM), a life-threatening disorder that is the primary cause of mortality in pregnant women in developing countries. The results, which can lead to the immediate treatment of PPCM in new mothers and a significant reduction in mortality, were presented at Heart Failure 2014, which opened the World Congress on Acute Heart Failure in Athens the 17 to the 20 May. "For pregnant women there are two major causes of death: massive hemorrhage ...

Sleeping pills increase CV events in heart failure patients

2014-05-17

Athens, 17 May 2014: Sleeping pills increase the risk of cardiovascular events in heart failure patients by 8-fold, according to research from Japan. The study was presented today at the Heart Failure Congress 2014, held 17-20 May in Athens, Greece. The Congress is the main annual meeting of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology. Dr Masahiko Setoguchi said: "Sleeping problems are a frequent side effect of heart failure and it is common for patients to be prescribed sleeping pills when they are discharged from hospital. They also have other ...

The Lancet Infectious Diseases: New early warning system predicts dengue fever risk during the soccer World Cup in Brazil

2014-05-17

For the first time, scientists have developed an early warning system to predict the risk of dengue infections for the 553 microregions of Brazil during the football World Cup. The estimates, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, show that the chance of a dengue outbreak is enough of a possibility to warrant a high-alert warning in the three northeastern venues (Natal, Fortaleza, and Recife) but is likely to be generally low in all 12 host cities. Dengue is a viral infection that is transmitted between humans by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. In some cases, it causes ...

Watching HIV bud from cells

2014-05-17

SALT LAKE CITY, May 16, 2014 – University of Utah researchers devised a way to watch newly forming AIDS virus particles emerging or "budding" from infected human cells without interfering with the process. The method shows a protein named ALIX gets involved during the final stages of virus replication, not earlier, as was believed previously. "We watch one cell at a time" and use a digital camera and special microscope to make movies and photos of the budding process, says virologist Saveez Saffarian, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy and senior author of ...

MicroRNA that could be used to suppress prostate cancer progression found

2014-05-17

CINCINNATI—About one in seven men will develop prostate cancer over the course of a lifetime, and about one in 36 men will die from it. This is why findings by Cincinnati Cancer Center researchers, showing that a tumor suppressive microRNA, when activated by an anti-estrogen drug, could contribute to development of future targeted therapies, are important. These findings are published in the May 16, 2014 edition of the journal PLOS ONE. "MicroRNAs, or miRNAs, are short RNA molecules that play a prominent role in regulating gene expression. One miRNA can target multiple ...

Breakthrough in HIV/AIDS research gives hope for improved drug therapy

2014-05-17

PITTSBURGH, May 16, 2014 – The first direct proof of a long-suspected cause of multiple HIV-related health complications was recently obtained by a team led by the University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research (CVR). The finding supports complementary therapies to antiretroviral drugs to significantly slow HIV progression. The study, which will be published in the June issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation and is available online, found that a drug commonly given to patients receiving kidney dialysis significantly diminishes the levels of bacteria that ...

Transgenic mice produce both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids on carbohydrate diet

2014-05-17

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators have developed a transgenic mouse that synthesizes both the omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids within its tissues on a diet of carbohydrates or saturated fats. Called "essential" because they are necessary to maintain important bodily functions, omega fatty acids cannot naturally be synthesized by mammals and therefore must be acquired by diet. Significant evidence suggest that the ratio of dietary omega-6 to omega-3 has important implications for human health, further increasing interest in the development of ...

Gender differences stand out in measuring impact of Viagra as therapy for heart failure

2014-05-17

New animal studies by Johns Hopkins cardiovascular researchers strongly suggest that sildenafil, the erectile dysfunction drug sold as Viagra and now under consideration as a treatment for heart failure, affects males and females very differently. The results of their investigations in varied male and female mouse models of heart failure are so clear-cut, says lead scientist Eiki Takimoto, M.D., Ph.D., that physicians may need to take gender into consideration when prescribing certain medications and that drug developers would be wise to take them into careful account ...

RELAX-AHF: Poor diuretic response associated with worse clinical outcomes

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: