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Polypharmacy in the Heart Failure Patient: Are All Prescribed Drug Classes Required? Statin Withdrawal Study

NCT01554592 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 13

Last updated 2016-06-01

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Heart failure (cardiomyopathy) is a chronic condition in which the heart fails to function as a pump to move blood around the body. This sets up a complex physiologic response to compensate, which include activation of many hormonal mechanisms which result in fluid accumulation.

In recent years, medications to block the hormonal response to heart failure are given as standard drugs, and these include ACE inhibitors and beta blockers. Mortality is reduced with these medications, as well as symptoms improved. Other medications are also used in heart failure, for which a clear-cut benefit has not been demonstrated. Statins, also called HMG CoA reductase inhibitors, are used to reduce cholesterol levels and can help to prevent heart failure by preventing heart attacks. They have been used in heart failure that is not caused by heart attacks in the belief that they had "pleiotropic" effects, meaning that they had beneficial effects in heart failure separate from the reduction in cholesterol.

However large trials in heart failure have demonstrated that statins do not increase survival compared with placebo. There is no evidence to recommend their routine use in established heart failure caused by either heart attacks or genetics.

The investigators propose that the use of statins in heart failure is unnecessary and could be stopped. The importance of finding evidence to cease unproven medications in heart failure cannot be understated. Patients with heart failure take an average of six prescription medications each day. Each medication has side effects and the interactions of all the drugs together are unknown. Statins are the commonest reason for side effects in patients with heart failure, causing muscle pains and gastrointestinal upset.

In this study, the investigators plan to withdraw statins from patients with stable heart failure in a closely monitored environment and watch for the effect of this on heart failure and on how they feel generally.

Conditions

Interventions

DRUG

Withdrawal of statin therapy

Participants currently received statin therapy will have their statin stopped for 12 weeks.

DRUG

Statin therapy

Participants will continue on stable statin therapy.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • The Alfred

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Henry Krum, MBBS FRACP PhD · Alfred Hospital/Monash University

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2012-03-31
Primary Completion
2014-12-31
Completion
2014-12-31

Countries

  • Australia

Study Locations

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Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT01554592 on ClinicalTrials.gov