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HealthDay News — For patients with symptomatic systolic heart failure not caused by coronary artery disease, an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) does not reduce the risk of all-cause mortality, according to a study published online August 28 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The research was published to coincide with the annual European Society of Cardiology Congress, held from August 27 to 31 in Rome.
Lars Køber, MD, from University Hospital in Copenhagen, Demark, and colleagues conducted a randomized controlled trial involving patients with symptomatic systolic heart failure not caused by coronary artery disease who were assigned to receive an ICD (556 patients) or usual clinical care (560 patients).
The researchers found that the primary outcome of death from any cause occurred in 21.6% of the ICD group and 23.4% of the control group, after a median follow-up period of 67.6 months (hazard ratio, 0.87; 95% confidence interval, 0.68 to 1.12). Sudden cardiac death occurred in 4.3 and 8.2% of the ICD and control groups, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.50; 95% confidence interval, 0.31 to 0.82). Device infection occurred in 4.9 and 3.6% of patients in the ICD and control groups, respectively (P=0.029).
“In this trial, prophylactic ICD implantation in patients with symptomatic systolic heart failure not caused by coronary artery disease was not associated with a significantly lower long-term rate of death from any cause than was usual clinical care,” the authors write.
The study was funded by Medtronic.
