Ivabradine shows promise for heart failure patients

For people with heart failure there is some possible good news. An international study from that ivabradine reduces the risk of death and hospitalization for heart failure patients by lowering the heart rate.

The study was published in The Lancet and presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Stockholm. The study, called SHIFT, (Systolic Heart Failure Treatment with the If Inhibitor Ivabradine Trial) compared a specific heart rate lowering medication, ivabradine, to placebo in addition to standard treatment for heart failure. The conclusions will change the way patients are managed in the future. Lead researcher Dr. Peter Liu, Peter Munk Cardiac Centre in Toronto, found that patients given ivabradine were 26 per cent less likely to die from heart failure. "SHIFT represents a significant milestone in how physicians will treat and manage heart failure in the future. For the first time ever, we have data that confirm that heart rate plays a key role in the progression of heart failure, and this is truly a paradigm "SHIFT" for both physicians and patients," said Dr. Peter Liu, who is also President of the International Society of Cardiomyopathy and Heart Failure of the World Heart Federation, and past Scientific Chair of the Heart Failure Society of America, in a press release. "Adding a unique selective heart rate lowering drug, ivabradine, to standard therapy early, dramatically reduces the risk of death and hospitalization for heart failure. This adds an entirely new potential approach to the treatments we have available to deal with this deadly epidemic of heart failure that is already affecting one in five Canadians." The drug has yet to be approved for clinical use in Canada.