The results of the TRANSFORM-HF study, which explored the effects of two different therapies on heart failure outcomes, were featured during the first late-breaking session at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions on Nov. 5. The five-year comparative-effectiveness study examined the effects of torsemide versus furosemide for patients with heart failure.
Treatment guidelines in the U.S. have changed substantially with the release of new therapies. Nevertheless, the current guidelines for diuretic agents which are a mainstay of therapy for heart failure have remained stagnant.
Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the investigative team — led by Principal Investigator Eric J. Velazquez, MD, Robert W. Berliner Professor of Medicine and chief of Yale Cardiovascular Medicine with the results presented by co-PI Robert J. Mentz, MD, chief of the heart failure section in the Division of Cardiology at Duke University School of Medicine — enrolled 2,859 hospitalized heart failure patients across 50 different U.S. centers. They found the two therapies had almost identical death and hospitalization rates after long-term follow-up.
Our findings definitively answer a fundamental question debated daily in hospitals worldwide about whether the choice of loop diuretic agents matter for patient discharged after hospitalization for acute heart failure care.
Eric J. Velazquez, MD
“Historically, long-term, actionable, clinical trial data have been hard to come by. Low site enrollment rates are prevalent, especially among women and racial minorities,” said Velazquez, the director of the study. “Our findings definitively answer a fundamental question debated daily in hospitals worldwide about whether the choice of loop diuretic agents matters for patients discharged after hospitalization for acute heart failure care. Importantly, the TRANSFORM HF site investigators have done so in a highly pragmatic, generalizable and representative manner.”
Yale authors also include Jeffrey M. Testani. Additional authors are Eric L. Eisenstein, Shelly Sapp, Stephen J. Greene, Amanda H. Harrington and Shelby Morgan from Duke, Kevin J. Anstrom from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Vandana Sachdev, Fassil Ketema, Dong-Yun Kim, and Patrice Desvigne-Nickens from the National Institute of Health; and Bertram Pitt from the University of Michigan.