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Mitchel is a reporter for MDedge based in the Philadelphia area. He started with the company in 1992, when it was International Medical News Group (IMNG), and has since covered a range of medical specialties. Mitchel trained as a virologist at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, and then worked briefly as a researcher at Boston Children's Hospital before pivoting to journalism as a AAAS Mass Media Fellow in 1980. His first reporting job was with Science Digest magazine, and from the mid-1980s to early-1990s he was a reporter with Medical World News. @mitchelzoler
Higher plasma cell-free DNA tracks with worse PAH survival
NEW ORLEANS – Cell-free (cf) DNA looked like an informative biomarker for both the severity of pulmonary artery hypertension and the survival prognosis for patients with this disease, based on results from two preliminary studies involving a total of 173 people.
“Plasma levels of cell-free DNA are elevated in patients with pulmonary artery hypertension, compared with healthy controls, and may predict disease severity and mortality,” Samuel B. Brusca, MD, said at the at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.
A growing biomedical literature has documented a role for cfDNA in tracking the course of cancer, septic shock, and transplanted organs (Transplantation. 2019 Feb;103[2]:273-83) (Cell-Free DNA: Applications in Different Diseases, in “Cell-free DNA as Diagnostic Markers.” [New York: Humana Press, 2018, pp. 3-12]). Based on this background Dr. Brusca and his associates decided to examine whether plasma levels of cfDNA linked with pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH) severity and survival.
Their first study included seven patients with mild PAH (defined as patients with a tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion [TAPSE] of more than 18 mm and a maximum oxygen uptake [VO2] of at least 75% of predicted), eight with severe PAH (a TAPSE of 18 mm or less and a VO2 of less than 75%), and seven healthy adult controls. Measurement of plasma cfDNA showed an average level of 19.4 ng/mL among the healthy controls (prior reports had indicated that 10-20 ng/mL were normal levels), 22.0 ng/mL among patients with mild PAH, and 36.2 ng/mL in those with severe PAH. The level among the severe PAH patients was significantly higher than the level in controls by two different statistical tests, said Dr. Brusca, a critical care medicine physician at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md.
The second analysis by Dr. Brusca and his associates included 151 PAH patients followed by physicians at the Clinical Center for an average of 40 months. Their analysis tracked survival of these patients relative to their baseline levels of cfDNA and divided into tertiles. Patients in the lowest tertile had a starting cfDNA level of up to 39 ng/mL, those in the middle tertile had levels of 39.1-64.0 ng/mL, and those in the top tertile had levels of at least 64.1 ng/mL. A Kaplan-Meier analysis showed statistically significant differences in survival rates between each of the tertiles. Patients in the lowest tertile had a 5-year actuarial survival rate of about 65%, those in the middle tertile had a survival rate of about 48%, and those in the tertile with the highest level of cfDNA had a survival rate of about 28%.
Additional studies of cfDNA are needed in larger numbers of PAH patients, and cfDNA levels should be compared with levels of other, more established biomarkers, such as inflammatory cytokines, Dr. Brusca said in an interview.
Dr. Brusca had no disclosures. The study received no commercial funding.
SOURCE: Brusca SB et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2019 March 12;73(9 Suppl 1):1897.
I was very excited to hear Dr. Brusca’s report on using cell-free (cf) DNA to track the severity of pulmonary artery hypertension and survival of these patients. I’m now using cfDNA frequently to monitor heart transplant patients, and the information it provides has been very valuable. But cfDNA may be even better suited to assessing patients with pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH) because it’s a vascular disease, and increases in cfDNA appears to reflect damage to the vascular endothelium. It’s a brilliant application of this technology. Brain natriuretic peptide and troponin are markers of right heart damage, but cfDNA appears to be able to track the progression of the vascular component of PAH. It appears to be the first disease-specific biomarker we have for PAH. It’s time to start routinely measuring levels of cfDNA in trials so we can gather more data on the clinical correlates of changing levels of this biomarker.
I was very excited to hear Dr. Brusca’s report on using cell-free (cf) DNA to track the severity of pulmonary artery hypertension and survival of these patients. I’m now using cfDNA frequently to monitor heart transplant patients, and the information it provides has been very valuable. But cfDNA may be even better suited to assessing patients with pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH) because it’s a vascular disease, and increases in cfDNA appears to reflect damage to the vascular endothelium. It’s a brilliant application of this technology. Brain natriuretic peptide and troponin are markers of right heart damage, but cfDNA appears to be able to track the progression of the vascular component of PAH. It appears to be the first disease-specific biomarker we have for PAH. It’s time to start routinely measuring levels of cfDNA in trials so we can gather more data on the clinical correlates of changing levels of this biomarker.
I was very excited to hear Dr. Brusca’s report on using cell-free (cf) DNA to track the severity of pulmonary artery hypertension and survival of these patients. I’m now using cfDNA frequently to monitor heart transplant patients, and the information it provides has been very valuable. But cfDNA may be even better suited to assessing patients with pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH) because it’s a vascular disease, and increases in cfDNA appears to reflect damage to the vascular endothelium. It’s a brilliant application of this technology. Brain natriuretic peptide and troponin are markers of right heart damage, but cfDNA appears to be able to track the progression of the vascular component of PAH. It appears to be the first disease-specific biomarker we have for PAH. It’s time to start routinely measuring levels of cfDNA in trials so we can gather more data on the clinical correlates of changing levels of this biomarker.
NEW ORLEANS – Cell-free (cf) DNA looked like an informative biomarker for both the severity of pulmonary artery hypertension and the survival prognosis for patients with this disease, based on results from two preliminary studies involving a total of 173 people.
“Plasma levels of cell-free DNA are elevated in patients with pulmonary artery hypertension, compared with healthy controls, and may predict disease severity and mortality,” Samuel B. Brusca, MD, said at the at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.
A growing biomedical literature has documented a role for cfDNA in tracking the course of cancer, septic shock, and transplanted organs (Transplantation. 2019 Feb;103[2]:273-83) (Cell-Free DNA: Applications in Different Diseases, in “Cell-free DNA as Diagnostic Markers.” [New York: Humana Press, 2018, pp. 3-12]). Based on this background Dr. Brusca and his associates decided to examine whether plasma levels of cfDNA linked with pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH) severity and survival.
Their first study included seven patients with mild PAH (defined as patients with a tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion [TAPSE] of more than 18 mm and a maximum oxygen uptake [VO2] of at least 75% of predicted), eight with severe PAH (a TAPSE of 18 mm or less and a VO2 of less than 75%), and seven healthy adult controls. Measurement of plasma cfDNA showed an average level of 19.4 ng/mL among the healthy controls (prior reports had indicated that 10-20 ng/mL were normal levels), 22.0 ng/mL among patients with mild PAH, and 36.2 ng/mL in those with severe PAH. The level among the severe PAH patients was significantly higher than the level in controls by two different statistical tests, said Dr. Brusca, a critical care medicine physician at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md.
The second analysis by Dr. Brusca and his associates included 151 PAH patients followed by physicians at the Clinical Center for an average of 40 months. Their analysis tracked survival of these patients relative to their baseline levels of cfDNA and divided into tertiles. Patients in the lowest tertile had a starting cfDNA level of up to 39 ng/mL, those in the middle tertile had levels of 39.1-64.0 ng/mL, and those in the top tertile had levels of at least 64.1 ng/mL. A Kaplan-Meier analysis showed statistically significant differences in survival rates between each of the tertiles. Patients in the lowest tertile had a 5-year actuarial survival rate of about 65%, those in the middle tertile had a survival rate of about 48%, and those in the tertile with the highest level of cfDNA had a survival rate of about 28%.
Additional studies of cfDNA are needed in larger numbers of PAH patients, and cfDNA levels should be compared with levels of other, more established biomarkers, such as inflammatory cytokines, Dr. Brusca said in an interview.
Dr. Brusca had no disclosures. The study received no commercial funding.
SOURCE: Brusca SB et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2019 March 12;73(9 Suppl 1):1897.
NEW ORLEANS – Cell-free (cf) DNA looked like an informative biomarker for both the severity of pulmonary artery hypertension and the survival prognosis for patients with this disease, based on results from two preliminary studies involving a total of 173 people.
“Plasma levels of cell-free DNA are elevated in patients with pulmonary artery hypertension, compared with healthy controls, and may predict disease severity and mortality,” Samuel B. Brusca, MD, said at the at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.
A growing biomedical literature has documented a role for cfDNA in tracking the course of cancer, septic shock, and transplanted organs (Transplantation. 2019 Feb;103[2]:273-83) (Cell-Free DNA: Applications in Different Diseases, in “Cell-free DNA as Diagnostic Markers.” [New York: Humana Press, 2018, pp. 3-12]). Based on this background Dr. Brusca and his associates decided to examine whether plasma levels of cfDNA linked with pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH) severity and survival.
Their first study included seven patients with mild PAH (defined as patients with a tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion [TAPSE] of more than 18 mm and a maximum oxygen uptake [VO2] of at least 75% of predicted), eight with severe PAH (a TAPSE of 18 mm or less and a VO2 of less than 75%), and seven healthy adult controls. Measurement of plasma cfDNA showed an average level of 19.4 ng/mL among the healthy controls (prior reports had indicated that 10-20 ng/mL were normal levels), 22.0 ng/mL among patients with mild PAH, and 36.2 ng/mL in those with severe PAH. The level among the severe PAH patients was significantly higher than the level in controls by two different statistical tests, said Dr. Brusca, a critical care medicine physician at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md.
The second analysis by Dr. Brusca and his associates included 151 PAH patients followed by physicians at the Clinical Center for an average of 40 months. Their analysis tracked survival of these patients relative to their baseline levels of cfDNA and divided into tertiles. Patients in the lowest tertile had a starting cfDNA level of up to 39 ng/mL, those in the middle tertile had levels of 39.1-64.0 ng/mL, and those in the top tertile had levels of at least 64.1 ng/mL. A Kaplan-Meier analysis showed statistically significant differences in survival rates between each of the tertiles. Patients in the lowest tertile had a 5-year actuarial survival rate of about 65%, those in the middle tertile had a survival rate of about 48%, and those in the tertile with the highest level of cfDNA had a survival rate of about 28%.
Additional studies of cfDNA are needed in larger numbers of PAH patients, and cfDNA levels should be compared with levels of other, more established biomarkers, such as inflammatory cytokines, Dr. Brusca said in an interview.
Dr. Brusca had no disclosures. The study received no commercial funding.
SOURCE: Brusca SB et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2019 March 12;73(9 Suppl 1):1897.
REPORTING FROM ACC 2019
CardioMEMS cuts heart failure hospitalizations in post-approval study
NEW ORLEANS – Frequent, noninvasive measurement of pulmonary artery pressure in patients with advanced heart failure and an implanted CardioMEMS device that allows this measurement led to management that produced a substantial reduction in heart failure hospitalizations, compared with each patient’s history, in a real-world study.
The Food and Drug Administration–mandated CardioMEMS Post-Approval Study included 1,200 patients who received CardioMEMS implants after it received U.S. marketing approval. The study showed that when clinicians and patients used the device in routine practice, presumably as part of a structured management system designed to take advantage of the pulmonary artery (PA) pressures the device provides, the result safely produced a 58% cut in heart failure hospitalizations during the year following device placement when compared to each patient’s own hospitalization history during the year before they got the CardioMEMS device, David M. Shavelle, MD, said at the at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology. This statistically significant result for the study’s primary endpoint showed an absolute reduction in the average rate of heart failure hospitalizations from 1.24 per patient during the year before the CardioMEMS placement to 0.52 hospitalizations per patient during the 12 months after placement, an average reduction of 0.72 hospitalizations/patient, said Dr. Shavelle, an interventional cardiologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Another notable finding was that this benefit from CardioMEMS placement and use occurred at roughly similar rates in patients with New York Heart Association class III heart failure regardless of whether they had a reduced ejection fraction (40% or less), a mid-range ejection fraction (41%-50%), or preserved ejection fraction (greater than 50%), making CardioMEMS use one of the few treatments to produce any proven benefit in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. In that subgroup, 30% of the 1,200 enrolled patients had an average cut of 0.68 hospitalizations in the year after CardioMEMS implantation, a 61% drop, relative to the year before they received the device.
The results also fulfilled the study’s two prespecified safety measures. Among the 1,214 patients in the study assessed for safety, which included the 1,200 patients who received the device and 4 patients in whom placement failed, 4 patients had a device or system related complication during the study, a 0.3% rate, compared with a prespecified objective performance criteria of less than 20%. Among the 1,200 patients with a functioning CardioMEMS sensor, one patient (0.1%) had a device failure, compared with the study’s objective performance criteria of less than 10%.
The performance of the CardioMEMS device and the benefit it provided to patients in the post-approval study closely tracked its performance during the published pivotal trial (Lancet. 2011 Feb 19;377[9766]:658-66). On the basis of the pivotal trial results, the FDA approved CardioMEMS for U.S. marketing in 2014. Since then, the company has reported that about 10,000 U.S. heart failure patients have received these devices, Dr. Shavelle said.
“The benefit was seen across the range of ejection fractions; that’s very important,” commented Gurusher Panjrath, MD, director of advanced heart failure at George Washington University in Washington and a designated discussant for Dr. Shavelle’s report. “The safety seemed very good, and the efficacy was consistent” with prior reports. “There also was high compliance. The key to success is the structure” of patient management, Dr. Pangroth said. “The data are limited by who is monitoring patients and their data and how much of that contact influences patient outcomes.”
That final comment by Dr. Panjrath highlighted the biggest caveat that heart failure clinicians have raised about judging the efficacy of CardioMEMS. To achieve clinical efficacy, the implanted device requires diligent, virtually daily interrogation and data transmission by the patient, assessment of a large amount of data for each patient by the patient’s clinical team, and responsiveness by the patient to medication adjustments directed by the clinical team to deal with episodes of rising PA pressure.
“The device itself has no benefit. It’s the actions prompted by the device that have benefit,” noted Clyde W. Yancy, MD, professor of medicine and chief of cardiology at Northwestern University in Chicago and a second designated discussant for the report.
Dr. Shavelle agreed that for the CardioMEMS device to have an impact, one basic requirement is to identify patients who will cooperate with data collection and transmission and also with changes in their medications that are sent to them in response to PA pressure changes. This means selecting patients who appear to have problems with volume overload, including prior hospitalizations for decompensation, and patients who are comfortable interacting with their clinical-care providers. It also means excluding patients who are too sick to benefit from this intervention. He estimated that at his center more than 95% of class III heart failure patients who qualified for inclusion in the post-approval study by clinical criteria were also judged reasonable recipients of the device based on their willingness to cooperate with this system. He also estimated that at the University of Southern California the heart failure clinical team is now caring for about 150 patients with a CardioMEMS device implanted.
Another concern is teasing apart the specific benefit of collecting and using PA pressure data from the contact that the clinical team maintains with CardioMEMS patients.
“If nurses are contacting patients more often, is it the device or the communication? We need to look at that very carefully in a study that had no control group,” Dr. Yancy said in an interview. Contact with a nurse “is the best thing you can do for heart failure patients.”
Dr. Shavelle countered that several reports from past studies that assessed case management and regular monitoring of and contact with heart failure patients but without PA pressure data failed to showed any consistent benefit to patients.
“If you pick the right patients, CardioMEMS works. There is no question in my mind that the device works,” Dr. Shavelle said in an interview. “If you pick the wrong patient, who will not send the data or follow dose changes, then it won’t work.”
The study was sponsored by Abbott, the company that markets the CardioMEMS HF System. Dr. Shavelle has been a consultant to and speaker on behalf of Abbott Vascular and he has received research funding from Abbott Vascular, Abiomed, Biocardia, and V-Wave. Dr. Yancy had an unspecified financial relationship with Abbott Laboratories. Dr. Panjrath had no disclosures.
[email protected]
On Twitter @mitchelzoler
SOURCE: Shavelle DM et al. American College of Cardiology annual meeting, abstract 405-16.
NEW ORLEANS – Frequent, noninvasive measurement of pulmonary artery pressure in patients with advanced heart failure and an implanted CardioMEMS device that allows this measurement led to management that produced a substantial reduction in heart failure hospitalizations, compared with each patient’s history, in a real-world study.
The Food and Drug Administration–mandated CardioMEMS Post-Approval Study included 1,200 patients who received CardioMEMS implants after it received U.S. marketing approval. The study showed that when clinicians and patients used the device in routine practice, presumably as part of a structured management system designed to take advantage of the pulmonary artery (PA) pressures the device provides, the result safely produced a 58% cut in heart failure hospitalizations during the year following device placement when compared to each patient’s own hospitalization history during the year before they got the CardioMEMS device, David M. Shavelle, MD, said at the at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology. This statistically significant result for the study’s primary endpoint showed an absolute reduction in the average rate of heart failure hospitalizations from 1.24 per patient during the year before the CardioMEMS placement to 0.52 hospitalizations per patient during the 12 months after placement, an average reduction of 0.72 hospitalizations/patient, said Dr. Shavelle, an interventional cardiologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Another notable finding was that this benefit from CardioMEMS placement and use occurred at roughly similar rates in patients with New York Heart Association class III heart failure regardless of whether they had a reduced ejection fraction (40% or less), a mid-range ejection fraction (41%-50%), or preserved ejection fraction (greater than 50%), making CardioMEMS use one of the few treatments to produce any proven benefit in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. In that subgroup, 30% of the 1,200 enrolled patients had an average cut of 0.68 hospitalizations in the year after CardioMEMS implantation, a 61% drop, relative to the year before they received the device.
The results also fulfilled the study’s two prespecified safety measures. Among the 1,214 patients in the study assessed for safety, which included the 1,200 patients who received the device and 4 patients in whom placement failed, 4 patients had a device or system related complication during the study, a 0.3% rate, compared with a prespecified objective performance criteria of less than 20%. Among the 1,200 patients with a functioning CardioMEMS sensor, one patient (0.1%) had a device failure, compared with the study’s objective performance criteria of less than 10%.
The performance of the CardioMEMS device and the benefit it provided to patients in the post-approval study closely tracked its performance during the published pivotal trial (Lancet. 2011 Feb 19;377[9766]:658-66). On the basis of the pivotal trial results, the FDA approved CardioMEMS for U.S. marketing in 2014. Since then, the company has reported that about 10,000 U.S. heart failure patients have received these devices, Dr. Shavelle said.
“The benefit was seen across the range of ejection fractions; that’s very important,” commented Gurusher Panjrath, MD, director of advanced heart failure at George Washington University in Washington and a designated discussant for Dr. Shavelle’s report. “The safety seemed very good, and the efficacy was consistent” with prior reports. “There also was high compliance. The key to success is the structure” of patient management, Dr. Pangroth said. “The data are limited by who is monitoring patients and their data and how much of that contact influences patient outcomes.”
That final comment by Dr. Panjrath highlighted the biggest caveat that heart failure clinicians have raised about judging the efficacy of CardioMEMS. To achieve clinical efficacy, the implanted device requires diligent, virtually daily interrogation and data transmission by the patient, assessment of a large amount of data for each patient by the patient’s clinical team, and responsiveness by the patient to medication adjustments directed by the clinical team to deal with episodes of rising PA pressure.
“The device itself has no benefit. It’s the actions prompted by the device that have benefit,” noted Clyde W. Yancy, MD, professor of medicine and chief of cardiology at Northwestern University in Chicago and a second designated discussant for the report.
Dr. Shavelle agreed that for the CardioMEMS device to have an impact, one basic requirement is to identify patients who will cooperate with data collection and transmission and also with changes in their medications that are sent to them in response to PA pressure changes. This means selecting patients who appear to have problems with volume overload, including prior hospitalizations for decompensation, and patients who are comfortable interacting with their clinical-care providers. It also means excluding patients who are too sick to benefit from this intervention. He estimated that at his center more than 95% of class III heart failure patients who qualified for inclusion in the post-approval study by clinical criteria were also judged reasonable recipients of the device based on their willingness to cooperate with this system. He also estimated that at the University of Southern California the heart failure clinical team is now caring for about 150 patients with a CardioMEMS device implanted.
Another concern is teasing apart the specific benefit of collecting and using PA pressure data from the contact that the clinical team maintains with CardioMEMS patients.
“If nurses are contacting patients more often, is it the device or the communication? We need to look at that very carefully in a study that had no control group,” Dr. Yancy said in an interview. Contact with a nurse “is the best thing you can do for heart failure patients.”
Dr. Shavelle countered that several reports from past studies that assessed case management and regular monitoring of and contact with heart failure patients but without PA pressure data failed to showed any consistent benefit to patients.
“If you pick the right patients, CardioMEMS works. There is no question in my mind that the device works,” Dr. Shavelle said in an interview. “If you pick the wrong patient, who will not send the data or follow dose changes, then it won’t work.”
The study was sponsored by Abbott, the company that markets the CardioMEMS HF System. Dr. Shavelle has been a consultant to and speaker on behalf of Abbott Vascular and he has received research funding from Abbott Vascular, Abiomed, Biocardia, and V-Wave. Dr. Yancy had an unspecified financial relationship with Abbott Laboratories. Dr. Panjrath had no disclosures.
[email protected]
On Twitter @mitchelzoler
SOURCE: Shavelle DM et al. American College of Cardiology annual meeting, abstract 405-16.
NEW ORLEANS – Frequent, noninvasive measurement of pulmonary artery pressure in patients with advanced heart failure and an implanted CardioMEMS device that allows this measurement led to management that produced a substantial reduction in heart failure hospitalizations, compared with each patient’s history, in a real-world study.
The Food and Drug Administration–mandated CardioMEMS Post-Approval Study included 1,200 patients who received CardioMEMS implants after it received U.S. marketing approval. The study showed that when clinicians and patients used the device in routine practice, presumably as part of a structured management system designed to take advantage of the pulmonary artery (PA) pressures the device provides, the result safely produced a 58% cut in heart failure hospitalizations during the year following device placement when compared to each patient’s own hospitalization history during the year before they got the CardioMEMS device, David M. Shavelle, MD, said at the at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology. This statistically significant result for the study’s primary endpoint showed an absolute reduction in the average rate of heart failure hospitalizations from 1.24 per patient during the year before the CardioMEMS placement to 0.52 hospitalizations per patient during the 12 months after placement, an average reduction of 0.72 hospitalizations/patient, said Dr. Shavelle, an interventional cardiologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Another notable finding was that this benefit from CardioMEMS placement and use occurred at roughly similar rates in patients with New York Heart Association class III heart failure regardless of whether they had a reduced ejection fraction (40% or less), a mid-range ejection fraction (41%-50%), or preserved ejection fraction (greater than 50%), making CardioMEMS use one of the few treatments to produce any proven benefit in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. In that subgroup, 30% of the 1,200 enrolled patients had an average cut of 0.68 hospitalizations in the year after CardioMEMS implantation, a 61% drop, relative to the year before they received the device.
The results also fulfilled the study’s two prespecified safety measures. Among the 1,214 patients in the study assessed for safety, which included the 1,200 patients who received the device and 4 patients in whom placement failed, 4 patients had a device or system related complication during the study, a 0.3% rate, compared with a prespecified objective performance criteria of less than 20%. Among the 1,200 patients with a functioning CardioMEMS sensor, one patient (0.1%) had a device failure, compared with the study’s objective performance criteria of less than 10%.
The performance of the CardioMEMS device and the benefit it provided to patients in the post-approval study closely tracked its performance during the published pivotal trial (Lancet. 2011 Feb 19;377[9766]:658-66). On the basis of the pivotal trial results, the FDA approved CardioMEMS for U.S. marketing in 2014. Since then, the company has reported that about 10,000 U.S. heart failure patients have received these devices, Dr. Shavelle said.
“The benefit was seen across the range of ejection fractions; that’s very important,” commented Gurusher Panjrath, MD, director of advanced heart failure at George Washington University in Washington and a designated discussant for Dr. Shavelle’s report. “The safety seemed very good, and the efficacy was consistent” with prior reports. “There also was high compliance. The key to success is the structure” of patient management, Dr. Pangroth said. “The data are limited by who is monitoring patients and their data and how much of that contact influences patient outcomes.”
That final comment by Dr. Panjrath highlighted the biggest caveat that heart failure clinicians have raised about judging the efficacy of CardioMEMS. To achieve clinical efficacy, the implanted device requires diligent, virtually daily interrogation and data transmission by the patient, assessment of a large amount of data for each patient by the patient’s clinical team, and responsiveness by the patient to medication adjustments directed by the clinical team to deal with episodes of rising PA pressure.
“The device itself has no benefit. It’s the actions prompted by the device that have benefit,” noted Clyde W. Yancy, MD, professor of medicine and chief of cardiology at Northwestern University in Chicago and a second designated discussant for the report.
Dr. Shavelle agreed that for the CardioMEMS device to have an impact, one basic requirement is to identify patients who will cooperate with data collection and transmission and also with changes in their medications that are sent to them in response to PA pressure changes. This means selecting patients who appear to have problems with volume overload, including prior hospitalizations for decompensation, and patients who are comfortable interacting with their clinical-care providers. It also means excluding patients who are too sick to benefit from this intervention. He estimated that at his center more than 95% of class III heart failure patients who qualified for inclusion in the post-approval study by clinical criteria were also judged reasonable recipients of the device based on their willingness to cooperate with this system. He also estimated that at the University of Southern California the heart failure clinical team is now caring for about 150 patients with a CardioMEMS device implanted.
Another concern is teasing apart the specific benefit of collecting and using PA pressure data from the contact that the clinical team maintains with CardioMEMS patients.
“If nurses are contacting patients more often, is it the device or the communication? We need to look at that very carefully in a study that had no control group,” Dr. Yancy said in an interview. Contact with a nurse “is the best thing you can do for heart failure patients.”
Dr. Shavelle countered that several reports from past studies that assessed case management and regular monitoring of and contact with heart failure patients but without PA pressure data failed to showed any consistent benefit to patients.
“If you pick the right patients, CardioMEMS works. There is no question in my mind that the device works,” Dr. Shavelle said in an interview. “If you pick the wrong patient, who will not send the data or follow dose changes, then it won’t work.”
The study was sponsored by Abbott, the company that markets the CardioMEMS HF System. Dr. Shavelle has been a consultant to and speaker on behalf of Abbott Vascular and he has received research funding from Abbott Vascular, Abiomed, Biocardia, and V-Wave. Dr. Yancy had an unspecified financial relationship with Abbott Laboratories. Dr. Panjrath had no disclosures.
[email protected]
On Twitter @mitchelzoler
SOURCE: Shavelle DM et al. American College of Cardiology annual meeting, abstract 405-16.
REPORTING FROM ACC 2019
AFib screening cuts hospitalizations and ED visits
NEW ORLEANS – People diagnosed with atrial fibrillation by screening with a wearable ECG patch had significantly fewer emergency department visits or hospital admissions, compared with similar people diagnosed with atrial fibrillation by usual-care surveillance in an observational study with 5,109 total participants.
People diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFib) through screening had a statistically significant 80% relative cut in hospitalizations and a 65% cut in emergency department visits during 12 months of follow-up, compared with controls in the study who had their AFib identified and diagnosed as part of routine practice, Steven R. Steinhubl, MD, said at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.
The data also showed no difference between the screened and control patients identified with AFib in the average number of cardiologist consultations during a year of follow-up, and a trend that missed statistical significance for 16% fewer primary care physician visits in Afib patients diagnosed by screening rather than by routine surveillance.
These findings provided some insight into the potential clinical impact of AFib screening in at-risk people. Dr. Steinhubl and his associates plan to report on the incidence of strokes and MIs in the two study subgroups after 3 years of follow-up, but he noted that preliminary findings for these two outcomes after 1 year indicated that active screening for AFib also had reduced these rates, compared with waiting for the arrhythmia to become apparent by emergence of symptoms.
The data came from the mSToPS (mHealth Screening to Prevent Strokes) study, which randomized 2,659 U.S. residents enrolled in a large health plan who had risk factors for AFib to either immediate or delayed arrhythmia assessment by ECG patches. Half the participants used a patch for about 14 days immediately and then a second time 3 months later, while the other half waited 4 months and then wore an ECG patch for 2 weeks and again 3 months later. The primary endpoint, first reported at the ACC annual meeting a year before and subsequently published, was the incidence of newly diagnosed AFib during the first 4 months in the actively monitored cohort, compared with a cohort followed by usual care. The results showed that screening identified AFib in 3.9% of people, while no screening and usual-practice follow-up identified a 0.9% incidence of AFib, showing that screening worked better for AFib case identification (JAMA. 2018 Jul 10;320[2]:146-55).
To examine the clinical impact of screening and an increased incidence of diagnosed AFib cases, Dr. Steinhubl and his associates focused on 1,725 of the original 2,659 patients who underwent ECG patch assessment, either immediate or delayed, and continued through 12 months of follow-up, and compared them with 3,384 matched controls who never underwent ECG patch screening but were also followed for 12 months for incident AFib identified during routine care and surveillance. This resulted in a cumulative incidence of newly diagnosed AFib of 6.3% in those who had worn two ECG patches and 2.3% among the matched controls.
During follow-up, use of various interventions was more common among the screened people than the controls. Initiation of anticoagulation treatment started in 4.0% of the entire screened group, compared with 1.9% of the controls, The screened people also had a 0.9% rate of receiving a pacemaker or defibrillator, a 0.8% rate of starting on treatment with an antiarrhythmic drug, and a 0.3% rate of undergoing catheter ablation, compared with none, 0.3%, and one of the controls, respectively, said Dr. Steinhubl, director of digital medicine at the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, Calif.
The mSToPS study was funded by Janssen. Dr. Steinhubl has received research funding from DynoSense, EasyG, Janssen, the Qualcomm Foundation, and Striv.
SOURCE: Steinhubl SR et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2019 Mar 12;73(9)suppl 1:296.
NEW ORLEANS – People diagnosed with atrial fibrillation by screening with a wearable ECG patch had significantly fewer emergency department visits or hospital admissions, compared with similar people diagnosed with atrial fibrillation by usual-care surveillance in an observational study with 5,109 total participants.
People diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFib) through screening had a statistically significant 80% relative cut in hospitalizations and a 65% cut in emergency department visits during 12 months of follow-up, compared with controls in the study who had their AFib identified and diagnosed as part of routine practice, Steven R. Steinhubl, MD, said at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.
The data also showed no difference between the screened and control patients identified with AFib in the average number of cardiologist consultations during a year of follow-up, and a trend that missed statistical significance for 16% fewer primary care physician visits in Afib patients diagnosed by screening rather than by routine surveillance.
These findings provided some insight into the potential clinical impact of AFib screening in at-risk people. Dr. Steinhubl and his associates plan to report on the incidence of strokes and MIs in the two study subgroups after 3 years of follow-up, but he noted that preliminary findings for these two outcomes after 1 year indicated that active screening for AFib also had reduced these rates, compared with waiting for the arrhythmia to become apparent by emergence of symptoms.
The data came from the mSToPS (mHealth Screening to Prevent Strokes) study, which randomized 2,659 U.S. residents enrolled in a large health plan who had risk factors for AFib to either immediate or delayed arrhythmia assessment by ECG patches. Half the participants used a patch for about 14 days immediately and then a second time 3 months later, while the other half waited 4 months and then wore an ECG patch for 2 weeks and again 3 months later. The primary endpoint, first reported at the ACC annual meeting a year before and subsequently published, was the incidence of newly diagnosed AFib during the first 4 months in the actively monitored cohort, compared with a cohort followed by usual care. The results showed that screening identified AFib in 3.9% of people, while no screening and usual-practice follow-up identified a 0.9% incidence of AFib, showing that screening worked better for AFib case identification (JAMA. 2018 Jul 10;320[2]:146-55).
To examine the clinical impact of screening and an increased incidence of diagnosed AFib cases, Dr. Steinhubl and his associates focused on 1,725 of the original 2,659 patients who underwent ECG patch assessment, either immediate or delayed, and continued through 12 months of follow-up, and compared them with 3,384 matched controls who never underwent ECG patch screening but were also followed for 12 months for incident AFib identified during routine care and surveillance. This resulted in a cumulative incidence of newly diagnosed AFib of 6.3% in those who had worn two ECG patches and 2.3% among the matched controls.
During follow-up, use of various interventions was more common among the screened people than the controls. Initiation of anticoagulation treatment started in 4.0% of the entire screened group, compared with 1.9% of the controls, The screened people also had a 0.9% rate of receiving a pacemaker or defibrillator, a 0.8% rate of starting on treatment with an antiarrhythmic drug, and a 0.3% rate of undergoing catheter ablation, compared with none, 0.3%, and one of the controls, respectively, said Dr. Steinhubl, director of digital medicine at the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, Calif.
The mSToPS study was funded by Janssen. Dr. Steinhubl has received research funding from DynoSense, EasyG, Janssen, the Qualcomm Foundation, and Striv.
SOURCE: Steinhubl SR et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2019 Mar 12;73(9)suppl 1:296.
NEW ORLEANS – People diagnosed with atrial fibrillation by screening with a wearable ECG patch had significantly fewer emergency department visits or hospital admissions, compared with similar people diagnosed with atrial fibrillation by usual-care surveillance in an observational study with 5,109 total participants.
People diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFib) through screening had a statistically significant 80% relative cut in hospitalizations and a 65% cut in emergency department visits during 12 months of follow-up, compared with controls in the study who had their AFib identified and diagnosed as part of routine practice, Steven R. Steinhubl, MD, said at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.
The data also showed no difference between the screened and control patients identified with AFib in the average number of cardiologist consultations during a year of follow-up, and a trend that missed statistical significance for 16% fewer primary care physician visits in Afib patients diagnosed by screening rather than by routine surveillance.
These findings provided some insight into the potential clinical impact of AFib screening in at-risk people. Dr. Steinhubl and his associates plan to report on the incidence of strokes and MIs in the two study subgroups after 3 years of follow-up, but he noted that preliminary findings for these two outcomes after 1 year indicated that active screening for AFib also had reduced these rates, compared with waiting for the arrhythmia to become apparent by emergence of symptoms.
The data came from the mSToPS (mHealth Screening to Prevent Strokes) study, which randomized 2,659 U.S. residents enrolled in a large health plan who had risk factors for AFib to either immediate or delayed arrhythmia assessment by ECG patches. Half the participants used a patch for about 14 days immediately and then a second time 3 months later, while the other half waited 4 months and then wore an ECG patch for 2 weeks and again 3 months later. The primary endpoint, first reported at the ACC annual meeting a year before and subsequently published, was the incidence of newly diagnosed AFib during the first 4 months in the actively monitored cohort, compared with a cohort followed by usual care. The results showed that screening identified AFib in 3.9% of people, while no screening and usual-practice follow-up identified a 0.9% incidence of AFib, showing that screening worked better for AFib case identification (JAMA. 2018 Jul 10;320[2]:146-55).
To examine the clinical impact of screening and an increased incidence of diagnosed AFib cases, Dr. Steinhubl and his associates focused on 1,725 of the original 2,659 patients who underwent ECG patch assessment, either immediate or delayed, and continued through 12 months of follow-up, and compared them with 3,384 matched controls who never underwent ECG patch screening but were also followed for 12 months for incident AFib identified during routine care and surveillance. This resulted in a cumulative incidence of newly diagnosed AFib of 6.3% in those who had worn two ECG patches and 2.3% among the matched controls.
During follow-up, use of various interventions was more common among the screened people than the controls. Initiation of anticoagulation treatment started in 4.0% of the entire screened group, compared with 1.9% of the controls, The screened people also had a 0.9% rate of receiving a pacemaker or defibrillator, a 0.8% rate of starting on treatment with an antiarrhythmic drug, and a 0.3% rate of undergoing catheter ablation, compared with none, 0.3%, and one of the controls, respectively, said Dr. Steinhubl, director of digital medicine at the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, Calif.
The mSToPS study was funded by Janssen. Dr. Steinhubl has received research funding from DynoSense, EasyG, Janssen, the Qualcomm Foundation, and Striv.
SOURCE: Steinhubl SR et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2019 Mar 12;73(9)suppl 1:296.
REPORTING FROM ACC 2019
Renal denervation boosts effectiveness of AFib catheter ablation
SAN FRANCISCO – Adding renal denervation when performing catheter ablation of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation in hypertensive patients substantially reduced their arrhythmia recurrence rate during the subsequent year in a multicenter, randomized trial with 302 patients.
The findings established renal denervation (RDN) as a “reasonable” tool to increase the success of atrial fibrillation (AFib) catheter ablation, Jonathan S. Steinberg, MD, said at the annual scientific sessions of the Heart Rhythm Society.
“The RDN procedure seems remarkably safe and seems to be reliably accomplished when an electrophysiologist does it,” said Dr. Steinberg, director of the Arrhythmia Center of the Summit Medical Group in Montclair, N.J. Given the evidence he reported that performing RDN simultaneously with AFib catheter ablation by pulmonary vein isolation significantly improved freedom from arrhythmia recurrence, this approach “is ready for clinical use at institutions that could mount this kind of program,” he declared.
The rate of freedom from arrhythmia recurrence while off antiarrhythmic drugs during the year following treatment was 57% among 138 patients treated with pulmonary vein isolation only, and 72% in 145 who underwent both pulmonary vein isolation and renal denervation. That’s “a pretty big difference in outcome” with no increased risk and with about 20 added minutes of procedure time, Dr. Steinberg said in a video interview. He acknowledged that, currently, no catheter is approved for U.S. marketing that is specifically designed for renal denervation, but the operators in the study he reported all used conventional radiofrequency ablation catheters with an irrigated tip, a design with U.S. availability.
The ERADICATE-AF (Renal Artery Denervation in Addition to Catheter Ablation to Eliminate Atrial Fibrillation) study randomized 302 patients with paroxysmal AFib and hypertension uncontrolled by medication at three centers in Russia, one in Germany, and one in Poland. Enrolled patients averaged about 60 years of age, about 60% were men, and their average blood pressure was roughly 150/90 mm Hg while on treatment with a median of two antihypertensive drugs, including 100% on either an ACE inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker. The study operators performed RDN by placing an average of six lesions in a spiral pattern in each of the patient’s two renal arteries.
The investigators screened for arrhythmia recurrence with 7-day Holter monitoring at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, with full 12-month follow-up available for 283 patients. After 12 months, blood pressures had declined by an average of 16/11 mm Hg among the patients who underwent RDN, with essentially no change in the patients who had pulmonary vein isolation only. Dr. Steinberg attributed the high success of the renal denervation procedures to the familiarity of the participating electrophysiologist operators with catheter-tip ablations.
“We have gone from treating patients with resistant hypertension to now treating patients with less severe hypertension,” Dr. Steinberg noted, and the next study he is planning will take this approach into patients with paroxysmal AFib but without hypertension, using RDN “solely as an anti-arrhythmic intervention,” he explained.
ERADICATE-AF did not receive commercial funding. Dr. Steinberg has been a consultant to Allergan, AtriCure, Biosense Webster, Corfigo, Medtronic, and Omron. He owns stock in AliveCor and receives salary from National Cardiac and G Medical.
ERADICATE-AF was a well-performed, informative, and provocative study that produced exciting results. I was very impressed that, despite the added complexity of performing an extra procedure, there appeared to be virtually no added risk to patients, with essentially identical complication rates in the two arms of the study. The 15.6% absolute difference in the rate of arrhythmia recurrences means that about six patients need to have renal denervation added to their catheter ablation to prevent one arrhythmia recurrence during 12 months, a pretty remarkable number-needed-to-treat.
Despite the successful outcome, adding renal denervation is not a panacea. These patients still had a 28% rate of recurrent atrial fibrillation during follow-up, and on average they also remained above their goal blood pressure despite the pressure reduction that renal denervation produced. The 43% arrhythmia recurrence rate among the patients who underwent only pulmonary vein isolation was consistent with prior reports on the efficacy of this treatment.
The findings raise the question of whether this approach would also work in AFib patients who are not hypertensive, and we must be cautious about the longer-term safety and durability of this treatment.
Cara N. Pellegrini, MD , is director of cardiac electrophysiology at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. She had no disclosures. She made these comments as designated discussant for ERADICATE-AF.
ERADICATE-AF was a well-performed, informative, and provocative study that produced exciting results. I was very impressed that, despite the added complexity of performing an extra procedure, there appeared to be virtually no added risk to patients, with essentially identical complication rates in the two arms of the study. The 15.6% absolute difference in the rate of arrhythmia recurrences means that about six patients need to have renal denervation added to their catheter ablation to prevent one arrhythmia recurrence during 12 months, a pretty remarkable number-needed-to-treat.
Despite the successful outcome, adding renal denervation is not a panacea. These patients still had a 28% rate of recurrent atrial fibrillation during follow-up, and on average they also remained above their goal blood pressure despite the pressure reduction that renal denervation produced. The 43% arrhythmia recurrence rate among the patients who underwent only pulmonary vein isolation was consistent with prior reports on the efficacy of this treatment.
The findings raise the question of whether this approach would also work in AFib patients who are not hypertensive, and we must be cautious about the longer-term safety and durability of this treatment.
Cara N. Pellegrini, MD , is director of cardiac electrophysiology at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. She had no disclosures. She made these comments as designated discussant for ERADICATE-AF.
ERADICATE-AF was a well-performed, informative, and provocative study that produced exciting results. I was very impressed that, despite the added complexity of performing an extra procedure, there appeared to be virtually no added risk to patients, with essentially identical complication rates in the two arms of the study. The 15.6% absolute difference in the rate of arrhythmia recurrences means that about six patients need to have renal denervation added to their catheter ablation to prevent one arrhythmia recurrence during 12 months, a pretty remarkable number-needed-to-treat.
Despite the successful outcome, adding renal denervation is not a panacea. These patients still had a 28% rate of recurrent atrial fibrillation during follow-up, and on average they also remained above their goal blood pressure despite the pressure reduction that renal denervation produced. The 43% arrhythmia recurrence rate among the patients who underwent only pulmonary vein isolation was consistent with prior reports on the efficacy of this treatment.
The findings raise the question of whether this approach would also work in AFib patients who are not hypertensive, and we must be cautious about the longer-term safety and durability of this treatment.
Cara N. Pellegrini, MD , is director of cardiac electrophysiology at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. She had no disclosures. She made these comments as designated discussant for ERADICATE-AF.
SAN FRANCISCO – Adding renal denervation when performing catheter ablation of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation in hypertensive patients substantially reduced their arrhythmia recurrence rate during the subsequent year in a multicenter, randomized trial with 302 patients.
The findings established renal denervation (RDN) as a “reasonable” tool to increase the success of atrial fibrillation (AFib) catheter ablation, Jonathan S. Steinberg, MD, said at the annual scientific sessions of the Heart Rhythm Society.
“The RDN procedure seems remarkably safe and seems to be reliably accomplished when an electrophysiologist does it,” said Dr. Steinberg, director of the Arrhythmia Center of the Summit Medical Group in Montclair, N.J. Given the evidence he reported that performing RDN simultaneously with AFib catheter ablation by pulmonary vein isolation significantly improved freedom from arrhythmia recurrence, this approach “is ready for clinical use at institutions that could mount this kind of program,” he declared.
The rate of freedom from arrhythmia recurrence while off antiarrhythmic drugs during the year following treatment was 57% among 138 patients treated with pulmonary vein isolation only, and 72% in 145 who underwent both pulmonary vein isolation and renal denervation. That’s “a pretty big difference in outcome” with no increased risk and with about 20 added minutes of procedure time, Dr. Steinberg said in a video interview. He acknowledged that, currently, no catheter is approved for U.S. marketing that is specifically designed for renal denervation, but the operators in the study he reported all used conventional radiofrequency ablation catheters with an irrigated tip, a design with U.S. availability.
The ERADICATE-AF (Renal Artery Denervation in Addition to Catheter Ablation to Eliminate Atrial Fibrillation) study randomized 302 patients with paroxysmal AFib and hypertension uncontrolled by medication at three centers in Russia, one in Germany, and one in Poland. Enrolled patients averaged about 60 years of age, about 60% were men, and their average blood pressure was roughly 150/90 mm Hg while on treatment with a median of two antihypertensive drugs, including 100% on either an ACE inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker. The study operators performed RDN by placing an average of six lesions in a spiral pattern in each of the patient’s two renal arteries.
The investigators screened for arrhythmia recurrence with 7-day Holter monitoring at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, with full 12-month follow-up available for 283 patients. After 12 months, blood pressures had declined by an average of 16/11 mm Hg among the patients who underwent RDN, with essentially no change in the patients who had pulmonary vein isolation only. Dr. Steinberg attributed the high success of the renal denervation procedures to the familiarity of the participating electrophysiologist operators with catheter-tip ablations.
“We have gone from treating patients with resistant hypertension to now treating patients with less severe hypertension,” Dr. Steinberg noted, and the next study he is planning will take this approach into patients with paroxysmal AFib but without hypertension, using RDN “solely as an anti-arrhythmic intervention,” he explained.
ERADICATE-AF did not receive commercial funding. Dr. Steinberg has been a consultant to Allergan, AtriCure, Biosense Webster, Corfigo, Medtronic, and Omron. He owns stock in AliveCor and receives salary from National Cardiac and G Medical.
SAN FRANCISCO – Adding renal denervation when performing catheter ablation of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation in hypertensive patients substantially reduced their arrhythmia recurrence rate during the subsequent year in a multicenter, randomized trial with 302 patients.
The findings established renal denervation (RDN) as a “reasonable” tool to increase the success of atrial fibrillation (AFib) catheter ablation, Jonathan S. Steinberg, MD, said at the annual scientific sessions of the Heart Rhythm Society.
“The RDN procedure seems remarkably safe and seems to be reliably accomplished when an electrophysiologist does it,” said Dr. Steinberg, director of the Arrhythmia Center of the Summit Medical Group in Montclair, N.J. Given the evidence he reported that performing RDN simultaneously with AFib catheter ablation by pulmonary vein isolation significantly improved freedom from arrhythmia recurrence, this approach “is ready for clinical use at institutions that could mount this kind of program,” he declared.
The rate of freedom from arrhythmia recurrence while off antiarrhythmic drugs during the year following treatment was 57% among 138 patients treated with pulmonary vein isolation only, and 72% in 145 who underwent both pulmonary vein isolation and renal denervation. That’s “a pretty big difference in outcome” with no increased risk and with about 20 added minutes of procedure time, Dr. Steinberg said in a video interview. He acknowledged that, currently, no catheter is approved for U.S. marketing that is specifically designed for renal denervation, but the operators in the study he reported all used conventional radiofrequency ablation catheters with an irrigated tip, a design with U.S. availability.
The ERADICATE-AF (Renal Artery Denervation in Addition to Catheter Ablation to Eliminate Atrial Fibrillation) study randomized 302 patients with paroxysmal AFib and hypertension uncontrolled by medication at three centers in Russia, one in Germany, and one in Poland. Enrolled patients averaged about 60 years of age, about 60% were men, and their average blood pressure was roughly 150/90 mm Hg while on treatment with a median of two antihypertensive drugs, including 100% on either an ACE inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker. The study operators performed RDN by placing an average of six lesions in a spiral pattern in each of the patient’s two renal arteries.
The investigators screened for arrhythmia recurrence with 7-day Holter monitoring at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, with full 12-month follow-up available for 283 patients. After 12 months, blood pressures had declined by an average of 16/11 mm Hg among the patients who underwent RDN, with essentially no change in the patients who had pulmonary vein isolation only. Dr. Steinberg attributed the high success of the renal denervation procedures to the familiarity of the participating electrophysiologist operators with catheter-tip ablations.
“We have gone from treating patients with resistant hypertension to now treating patients with less severe hypertension,” Dr. Steinberg noted, and the next study he is planning will take this approach into patients with paroxysmal AFib but without hypertension, using RDN “solely as an anti-arrhythmic intervention,” he explained.
ERADICATE-AF did not receive commercial funding. Dr. Steinberg has been a consultant to Allergan, AtriCure, Biosense Webster, Corfigo, Medtronic, and Omron. He owns stock in AliveCor and receives salary from National Cardiac and G Medical.
REPORTING FROM HEART RHYTHM 2019
Higher AFib ablation volumes linked with better outcomes
SAN FRANCISCO – The number of atrial fibrillation (Afib) catheter ablations a hospital did a year had a substantial, independent effect on patient outcomes in a study of more than 54,000 U.S. catheter ablations performed during 2010-2014.
The results showed that the roughly one-third of studied hospitals with the lowest annual volume of catheter ablations performed, 20 or fewer, had twice the acute complication rate and twice the 30-day in-hospital mortality rate, compared with the hospitals that did 53 or more such procedures annually in patients with atrial fibrillation, Jim W. Cheung, MD, said while presenting a poster at the annual scientific sessions of the Heart Rhythm Society.
The data, taken from 1,738 U.S. hospitals during 2010-2014 and captured in the Nationwide Readmissions Database, also showed that 79% of these hospitals performed 20 or fewer catheter ablations for atrial fibrillation (AFib) annually, with 63% doing 10 or fewer cases per year during the 5 years studied.
The findings raise the question of whether U.S. guidelines for catheter ablation of AFib should specify a minimum case volume for hospital programs, and if so, how high the minimum should be. Volume thresholds are “something to think about,” or a system to designate centers of excellence, Dr. Cheung suggested in a video interview. But interest in setting volume thresholds to better insure competence is often counterbalanced by concerns about patient access, he noted.
The prevailing U.S. guidelines for catheter ablation of AFib are in a 2017 statement from the Heart Rhythm Society and several collaborating groups (J Arrhythm. 2017 Oct;33[5]:369-409). The statement focused on operator volume rather than hospital volume and said that each operator should perform “several” AFib ablation procedures each month, which is generally understood to mean at least 2 per month or at least about 25 annually, commented Hugh Calkins, MD, chair of the panel that wrote the statement and professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. The major rationale for setting a suggested minimum of about 25 cases/year came largely from a 2013 report that is cited as the first study to document a volume-outcome relationship for catheter ablation of AFib (Circulation. 2013 Nov 5;128[19]:2104-12), Dr. Calkins noted. “Volume does matter,” he agreed in an interview, but no society or organization monitors hospital or operator volumes, nor takes any steps when volumes are low.
The Nationwide Readmissions Database included 54,599 patients who underwent AFib catheter ablation during 2010-2014. Dr. Cheung and his associates divided these patients into rough tertiles based on the annual procedure volumes of the hospitals that performed these ablations. The 36% of patients treated at hospitals that did 20 or fewer procedures annually were on average older and had more comorbidities than the 31% treated at hospitals in the highest-volume tertile, which performed at least 53 ablations annually. In an analysis that adjusted for these demographic and clinical differences, patients ablated at the lower-volume hospitals had a statistically significant 2.06-fold higher rate of any complication and a 2.24-fold increased rate of in-hospital mortality, either during the index hospitalization or during a 30-day hospital readmission, reported Dr. Cheung, director of clinical electrophysiology research at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. The increased rate of complications was driven by a fivefold increased rate of cardiac perforations, a greater than doubled periprocedural stroke rate, and a roughly 50% increased rate of vascular complications, compared with the highest-volume hospitals and after adjustment for baseline differences.
Dr. Cheung has been a consultant to Abbott and Biotronik, and has received fellowship support from Biosense Webster, Biotronik, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, and St. Jude. Dr. Calkins disclosed ties to Abbott, Altathera, AtriCure, Boehringer Ingelheim, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, St. Jude, and MRI Interventions.
SOURCE: Cheung JW. HRS 2019, Abstract S-P001-123.
SAN FRANCISCO – The number of atrial fibrillation (Afib) catheter ablations a hospital did a year had a substantial, independent effect on patient outcomes in a study of more than 54,000 U.S. catheter ablations performed during 2010-2014.
The results showed that the roughly one-third of studied hospitals with the lowest annual volume of catheter ablations performed, 20 or fewer, had twice the acute complication rate and twice the 30-day in-hospital mortality rate, compared with the hospitals that did 53 or more such procedures annually in patients with atrial fibrillation, Jim W. Cheung, MD, said while presenting a poster at the annual scientific sessions of the Heart Rhythm Society.
The data, taken from 1,738 U.S. hospitals during 2010-2014 and captured in the Nationwide Readmissions Database, also showed that 79% of these hospitals performed 20 or fewer catheter ablations for atrial fibrillation (AFib) annually, with 63% doing 10 or fewer cases per year during the 5 years studied.
The findings raise the question of whether U.S. guidelines for catheter ablation of AFib should specify a minimum case volume for hospital programs, and if so, how high the minimum should be. Volume thresholds are “something to think about,” or a system to designate centers of excellence, Dr. Cheung suggested in a video interview. But interest in setting volume thresholds to better insure competence is often counterbalanced by concerns about patient access, he noted.
The prevailing U.S. guidelines for catheter ablation of AFib are in a 2017 statement from the Heart Rhythm Society and several collaborating groups (J Arrhythm. 2017 Oct;33[5]:369-409). The statement focused on operator volume rather than hospital volume and said that each operator should perform “several” AFib ablation procedures each month, which is generally understood to mean at least 2 per month or at least about 25 annually, commented Hugh Calkins, MD, chair of the panel that wrote the statement and professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. The major rationale for setting a suggested minimum of about 25 cases/year came largely from a 2013 report that is cited as the first study to document a volume-outcome relationship for catheter ablation of AFib (Circulation. 2013 Nov 5;128[19]:2104-12), Dr. Calkins noted. “Volume does matter,” he agreed in an interview, but no society or organization monitors hospital or operator volumes, nor takes any steps when volumes are low.
The Nationwide Readmissions Database included 54,599 patients who underwent AFib catheter ablation during 2010-2014. Dr. Cheung and his associates divided these patients into rough tertiles based on the annual procedure volumes of the hospitals that performed these ablations. The 36% of patients treated at hospitals that did 20 or fewer procedures annually were on average older and had more comorbidities than the 31% treated at hospitals in the highest-volume tertile, which performed at least 53 ablations annually. In an analysis that adjusted for these demographic and clinical differences, patients ablated at the lower-volume hospitals had a statistically significant 2.06-fold higher rate of any complication and a 2.24-fold increased rate of in-hospital mortality, either during the index hospitalization or during a 30-day hospital readmission, reported Dr. Cheung, director of clinical electrophysiology research at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. The increased rate of complications was driven by a fivefold increased rate of cardiac perforations, a greater than doubled periprocedural stroke rate, and a roughly 50% increased rate of vascular complications, compared with the highest-volume hospitals and after adjustment for baseline differences.
Dr. Cheung has been a consultant to Abbott and Biotronik, and has received fellowship support from Biosense Webster, Biotronik, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, and St. Jude. Dr. Calkins disclosed ties to Abbott, Altathera, AtriCure, Boehringer Ingelheim, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, St. Jude, and MRI Interventions.
SOURCE: Cheung JW. HRS 2019, Abstract S-P001-123.
SAN FRANCISCO – The number of atrial fibrillation (Afib) catheter ablations a hospital did a year had a substantial, independent effect on patient outcomes in a study of more than 54,000 U.S. catheter ablations performed during 2010-2014.
The results showed that the roughly one-third of studied hospitals with the lowest annual volume of catheter ablations performed, 20 or fewer, had twice the acute complication rate and twice the 30-day in-hospital mortality rate, compared with the hospitals that did 53 or more such procedures annually in patients with atrial fibrillation, Jim W. Cheung, MD, said while presenting a poster at the annual scientific sessions of the Heart Rhythm Society.
The data, taken from 1,738 U.S. hospitals during 2010-2014 and captured in the Nationwide Readmissions Database, also showed that 79% of these hospitals performed 20 or fewer catheter ablations for atrial fibrillation (AFib) annually, with 63% doing 10 or fewer cases per year during the 5 years studied.
The findings raise the question of whether U.S. guidelines for catheter ablation of AFib should specify a minimum case volume for hospital programs, and if so, how high the minimum should be. Volume thresholds are “something to think about,” or a system to designate centers of excellence, Dr. Cheung suggested in a video interview. But interest in setting volume thresholds to better insure competence is often counterbalanced by concerns about patient access, he noted.
The prevailing U.S. guidelines for catheter ablation of AFib are in a 2017 statement from the Heart Rhythm Society and several collaborating groups (J Arrhythm. 2017 Oct;33[5]:369-409). The statement focused on operator volume rather than hospital volume and said that each operator should perform “several” AFib ablation procedures each month, which is generally understood to mean at least 2 per month or at least about 25 annually, commented Hugh Calkins, MD, chair of the panel that wrote the statement and professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. The major rationale for setting a suggested minimum of about 25 cases/year came largely from a 2013 report that is cited as the first study to document a volume-outcome relationship for catheter ablation of AFib (Circulation. 2013 Nov 5;128[19]:2104-12), Dr. Calkins noted. “Volume does matter,” he agreed in an interview, but no society or organization monitors hospital or operator volumes, nor takes any steps when volumes are low.
The Nationwide Readmissions Database included 54,599 patients who underwent AFib catheter ablation during 2010-2014. Dr. Cheung and his associates divided these patients into rough tertiles based on the annual procedure volumes of the hospitals that performed these ablations. The 36% of patients treated at hospitals that did 20 or fewer procedures annually were on average older and had more comorbidities than the 31% treated at hospitals in the highest-volume tertile, which performed at least 53 ablations annually. In an analysis that adjusted for these demographic and clinical differences, patients ablated at the lower-volume hospitals had a statistically significant 2.06-fold higher rate of any complication and a 2.24-fold increased rate of in-hospital mortality, either during the index hospitalization or during a 30-day hospital readmission, reported Dr. Cheung, director of clinical electrophysiology research at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. The increased rate of complications was driven by a fivefold increased rate of cardiac perforations, a greater than doubled periprocedural stroke rate, and a roughly 50% increased rate of vascular complications, compared with the highest-volume hospitals and after adjustment for baseline differences.
Dr. Cheung has been a consultant to Abbott and Biotronik, and has received fellowship support from Biosense Webster, Biotronik, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, and St. Jude. Dr. Calkins disclosed ties to Abbott, Altathera, AtriCure, Boehringer Ingelheim, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, St. Jude, and MRI Interventions.
SOURCE: Cheung JW. HRS 2019, Abstract S-P001-123.
REPORTING FROM HEART RHYTHM 2019
Key clinical point: .
Major finding: Hospitals performing 20 or fewer catheter ablations annually had twice as many acute complications as hospitals doing at least 53.
Study details: Analysis of 54,599 atrial fibrillation patients who underwent catheter ablation in the Nationwide Readmissions Database.
Disclosures: Dr. Cheung has been a consultant to Abbott and Biotronik, and has received fellowship support from Biosense Webster, Biotronik, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, and St. Jude.
Source: Cheung JW et al. Heart Rhythm 2019, Abstract S-P001-123.
FDA opts not to ban textured breast implants
The Food and Drug Administration decided to continue to allow U.S. sales of textured breast implants, which have been identified as the cause of a rare but significant cancer, breast implant–associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma.
A statement the agency released on May 2 said “The FDA does not believe that, on the basis of available data and information, the device [textured implants] meets the banning standard set forth in the Federal Food and Drug Cosmetic Act.” roughly half of them in the United States.
In coming to this decision, following 2 days of public testimony and discussions by an advisory committee in late March, the FDA is bucking the path taken by regulatory bodies of the European Union as well as several other counties. The EU acted in December 2018 to produce the equivalent of a ban on sales of textured breast implants marketed by Allergan. Then in April 2019, the French drug and device regulatory agency expanded this ban to textured breast implants sold by five other companies.
During the FDA advisory committee meeting in March, one of the world’s experts on BIA-ALCL, Mark W. Clemens, MD, a plastic surgeon at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said that of about 500 case reports received by the FDA, not one had involved a confirmed and “pure” episode of BIA-ALCL linked with a smooth breast implant. A team of experts recently reached the same conclusion when reviewing the reported worldwide incidence of BIA-ALCL in a published review (Plast Reconstr Surg. 2019 March;143[3S]:30S-40S).
Despite these reports, the FDA said in its new statement that “While the majority of women who develop BIA-ALCL have had textured implants, there are known cases in women with smooth-surface breast implants, and many reports do not include the surface texture of the implant at the time of diagnosis.” The agency added that it is “focused on strengthening the evidence generated to help inform future regulatory action.” During the March advisory committee meeting, some members of the panel spoke against a marketing ban on textured implants for reasons such as the modest number of reported cases and because of the importance of having a textured implant option available.
The FDA took several other notable steps in its May 2 statement:
The agency formally acknowledged that many breast implant recipients have reported experiencing adverse effects that include chronic fatigue, cognitive issues, and joint and muscle pain. “While the FDA doesn’t have definitive evidence demonstrating breast implants cause these symptoms, the current evidence supports that some women experience systemic symptoms that may resolve when their breast implants are removed.” The agency also cited the term that patients have coined for these symptoms: Breast Implant Illness.
The FDA made a commitment to “take steps to improve the information available to women and health care professionals about the risks of breast implants,” including the risk for BIA-ALCL, the increased risk for this cancer with textured implants, and the risk for systemic symptoms. The agency said it would work with stakeholders on possible changes to breast implant labeling, including a possible boxed warning, and a patient-decision checklist.
The FDA announced a change in how manufacturers will file medical device reports for breast implants. The agency will no longer allow these filings to be “summary” reports and will instead require manufacturers to file full individual medical device reports for each case that will be publicly available, with the intent to make reporting more transparent and complete.
Finally, the FDA announced that it would partner with two U.S. breast implant registries, the PROFILE registry of BIA-ALCL cases, and the National Breast Implant Registry, both run by the Plastic Surgery Foundation.
The FDA did not address in its statement other issues that came up during the March advisory committee hearings, including a panel recommendation to change follow-up imaging from MRI to ultrasound for monitoring women with implants for rupture, and the extensive, off-label use of surgical mesh during breast implant surgery.
The Food and Drug Administration decided to continue to allow U.S. sales of textured breast implants, which have been identified as the cause of a rare but significant cancer, breast implant–associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma.
A statement the agency released on May 2 said “The FDA does not believe that, on the basis of available data and information, the device [textured implants] meets the banning standard set forth in the Federal Food and Drug Cosmetic Act.” roughly half of them in the United States.
In coming to this decision, following 2 days of public testimony and discussions by an advisory committee in late March, the FDA is bucking the path taken by regulatory bodies of the European Union as well as several other counties. The EU acted in December 2018 to produce the equivalent of a ban on sales of textured breast implants marketed by Allergan. Then in April 2019, the French drug and device regulatory agency expanded this ban to textured breast implants sold by five other companies.
During the FDA advisory committee meeting in March, one of the world’s experts on BIA-ALCL, Mark W. Clemens, MD, a plastic surgeon at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said that of about 500 case reports received by the FDA, not one had involved a confirmed and “pure” episode of BIA-ALCL linked with a smooth breast implant. A team of experts recently reached the same conclusion when reviewing the reported worldwide incidence of BIA-ALCL in a published review (Plast Reconstr Surg. 2019 March;143[3S]:30S-40S).
Despite these reports, the FDA said in its new statement that “While the majority of women who develop BIA-ALCL have had textured implants, there are known cases in women with smooth-surface breast implants, and many reports do not include the surface texture of the implant at the time of diagnosis.” The agency added that it is “focused on strengthening the evidence generated to help inform future regulatory action.” During the March advisory committee meeting, some members of the panel spoke against a marketing ban on textured implants for reasons such as the modest number of reported cases and because of the importance of having a textured implant option available.
The FDA took several other notable steps in its May 2 statement:
The agency formally acknowledged that many breast implant recipients have reported experiencing adverse effects that include chronic fatigue, cognitive issues, and joint and muscle pain. “While the FDA doesn’t have definitive evidence demonstrating breast implants cause these symptoms, the current evidence supports that some women experience systemic symptoms that may resolve when their breast implants are removed.” The agency also cited the term that patients have coined for these symptoms: Breast Implant Illness.
The FDA made a commitment to “take steps to improve the information available to women and health care professionals about the risks of breast implants,” including the risk for BIA-ALCL, the increased risk for this cancer with textured implants, and the risk for systemic symptoms. The agency said it would work with stakeholders on possible changes to breast implant labeling, including a possible boxed warning, and a patient-decision checklist.
The FDA announced a change in how manufacturers will file medical device reports for breast implants. The agency will no longer allow these filings to be “summary” reports and will instead require manufacturers to file full individual medical device reports for each case that will be publicly available, with the intent to make reporting more transparent and complete.
Finally, the FDA announced that it would partner with two U.S. breast implant registries, the PROFILE registry of BIA-ALCL cases, and the National Breast Implant Registry, both run by the Plastic Surgery Foundation.
The FDA did not address in its statement other issues that came up during the March advisory committee hearings, including a panel recommendation to change follow-up imaging from MRI to ultrasound for monitoring women with implants for rupture, and the extensive, off-label use of surgical mesh during breast implant surgery.
The Food and Drug Administration decided to continue to allow U.S. sales of textured breast implants, which have been identified as the cause of a rare but significant cancer, breast implant–associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma.
A statement the agency released on May 2 said “The FDA does not believe that, on the basis of available data and information, the device [textured implants] meets the banning standard set forth in the Federal Food and Drug Cosmetic Act.” roughly half of them in the United States.
In coming to this decision, following 2 days of public testimony and discussions by an advisory committee in late March, the FDA is bucking the path taken by regulatory bodies of the European Union as well as several other counties. The EU acted in December 2018 to produce the equivalent of a ban on sales of textured breast implants marketed by Allergan. Then in April 2019, the French drug and device regulatory agency expanded this ban to textured breast implants sold by five other companies.
During the FDA advisory committee meeting in March, one of the world’s experts on BIA-ALCL, Mark W. Clemens, MD, a plastic surgeon at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said that of about 500 case reports received by the FDA, not one had involved a confirmed and “pure” episode of BIA-ALCL linked with a smooth breast implant. A team of experts recently reached the same conclusion when reviewing the reported worldwide incidence of BIA-ALCL in a published review (Plast Reconstr Surg. 2019 March;143[3S]:30S-40S).
Despite these reports, the FDA said in its new statement that “While the majority of women who develop BIA-ALCL have had textured implants, there are known cases in women with smooth-surface breast implants, and many reports do not include the surface texture of the implant at the time of diagnosis.” The agency added that it is “focused on strengthening the evidence generated to help inform future regulatory action.” During the March advisory committee meeting, some members of the panel spoke against a marketing ban on textured implants for reasons such as the modest number of reported cases and because of the importance of having a textured implant option available.
The FDA took several other notable steps in its May 2 statement:
The agency formally acknowledged that many breast implant recipients have reported experiencing adverse effects that include chronic fatigue, cognitive issues, and joint and muscle pain. “While the FDA doesn’t have definitive evidence demonstrating breast implants cause these symptoms, the current evidence supports that some women experience systemic symptoms that may resolve when their breast implants are removed.” The agency also cited the term that patients have coined for these symptoms: Breast Implant Illness.
The FDA made a commitment to “take steps to improve the information available to women and health care professionals about the risks of breast implants,” including the risk for BIA-ALCL, the increased risk for this cancer with textured implants, and the risk for systemic symptoms. The agency said it would work with stakeholders on possible changes to breast implant labeling, including a possible boxed warning, and a patient-decision checklist.
The FDA announced a change in how manufacturers will file medical device reports for breast implants. The agency will no longer allow these filings to be “summary” reports and will instead require manufacturers to file full individual medical device reports for each case that will be publicly available, with the intent to make reporting more transparent and complete.
Finally, the FDA announced that it would partner with two U.S. breast implant registries, the PROFILE registry of BIA-ALCL cases, and the National Breast Implant Registry, both run by the Plastic Surgery Foundation.
The FDA did not address in its statement other issues that came up during the March advisory committee hearings, including a panel recommendation to change follow-up imaging from MRI to ultrasound for monitoring women with implants for rupture, and the extensive, off-label use of surgical mesh during breast implant surgery.
Ribavirin boosts HCV genotype 3 eradication in compensated cirrhotic patients
VIENNA – In patients with compensated cirrhosis infected with genotype 3 hepatitis C virus, adding ribavirin to a usual antiviral regimen of sofosbuvir and velpatasvir significantly boosted the rate of sustained virologic response in a review of more than 14,000 English residents entered in a national registry starting in 2017.
With ribavirin added to a sofosbuvir plus velpatasvir regimen for 12 weeks of treatment, the three-drug combination produced a 98% rate of sustained virologic response after 12 weeks (SVR12) in 196 treated patients, Kate Drysdale, MBBCh, said at the meeting sponsored by the European Association for the Study of the Liver. In contrast, 218 compensated cirrhosis patients who received a 12-week regimen of sofosbuvir plus velpatasvir (Epclusa) but without ribavirin had an SVR12 rate of just under 92%, a statistically significant difference, compared with the rate among patients who also received ribavirin, said Dr. Drysdale, a gastroenterologist at Bart’s Health and Queen Mary University of London. The SVR12 rate among 167 compensated cirrhotic patients treated for 12 weeks with the combination of glecaprevir plus pibrentasvir (Mavyret) was 96%, and not statistically different from the patients who received three drugs including ribavirin. The sofosbuvir, velpatasvir, ribavirin combination also outperformed the combination of sofosbuvir plus daclatasvir (Daklinza) and ribavirin, which produced an SVR12 of 92% in 868 patients. The SVR12 rate is the percentage of patients with undetectable hepatitis C virus (HCV) 12 or more weeks after the end of treatment.
Dr. Drysdale cautioned that the data have not yet been put through a multivariate analysis, but the results so far provide “a strong indication that ribavirin may not be as insignificant” as many have recently presumed. “Ribavirin has been set aside because it was thought not to add to the SVR12, but if patients get only one go at treatment, we must be sure their first treatment is the best one,” Dr. Drysdale said in an interview. If ribavirin can be shown to make a significant contribution to treatment efficacy “then we should think more widely about using it when patients tolerate it.”
The analysis included too few patients with either current decompensated cirrhosis or a history of decompensated cirrhosis to make any statistically meaningful comparisons of the treatment subgroups among these patients. And among patients with genotype 3 HCV infection and without cirrhosis, none of the treatments used in practice showed any statistically significant differences in the SVR12 rates they produced. Among patients without cirrhosis the most commonly used regimens by far were an 8-week course of glecaprevir plus pibrentasvir in 731 patients or a 12-week course of sofosbuvir plus velpatasvir in 1,184 patients. Both regimens had SVR12 rates in noncirrhotic patients of 97%, regardless of whether patients had no, mild, or moderate liver fibrosis.
The study used data collected in an English national registry of HCV-infected patients treated with direct-acting antiviral drugs starting in 2017. Dr. Drysdale and her associates narrowed down the total database of more than 37,000 English adults who received some HCV therapy during the period to 14,603 who received a complete, valid regimen and had follow-up SVR12 information available. The overall SVR12 rate among all these patients was 95.59%, and among the patients infected by genotype 3 virus the SVR12 rate was 95.03%. Dr. Drysdale’s analysis focused primarily on the roughly one-third of patients in the study group infected with genotype 3 HCV, the genotype that historically has presented unique treatment challenges (Drugs. 2017 Feb;77[2]:131-44).
Another finding Dr. Drysdale reported was that as liver disease severity worsened from no fibrosis to mild or moderate fibrosis, and then to compensated cirrhosis or decompensation, the SVR12 rate steadily diminished. Among genotype 3 patients, the SVR12 rate fell from about 97% among patients without any fibrosis to about 87% among those with decompensated cirrhosis. Although this observation had been made before, this finding in such a large number of treated patients adds significant new evidence to support this pattern. It also adds further support to the idea of screening for HCV infection among higher-risk, asymptomatic people to optimize their prospects for virus eradication with treatment.
“If patients get much better treatment outcomes before they become cirrhotic then we should try to find these HCV-infected people before they develop symptoms,” Dr. Drysdale said.
Dr. Drysdale reported no disclosures.
SOURCE: Drysdale K et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April;70(1):e131.
The results from Dr. Drysdale’s analysis confirm what had previously been proposed by other investigators that, in a subgroup of patients with cirrhosis and infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 3, adding ribavirin to a regimen of direct-acting antiviral drugs can increase efficacy. But the new study included no data to address the prevalence of HCV genetic variants with resistance mutations that necessitate adding ribavirin. We have known that, in patients with cirrhosis and infected with resistant genotype 3 HCV, adding ribavirin is necessary. In many locations resistance testing is not possible; in those circumstances, adding ribavirin to the treatment should be routinely done.
Thomas Berg, MD, is professor and head of hepatology at University Hospital in Leipzig, Germany. He has received personal fees and research support from several companies. He made these comments in an interview.
The results from Dr. Drysdale’s analysis confirm what had previously been proposed by other investigators that, in a subgroup of patients with cirrhosis and infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 3, adding ribavirin to a regimen of direct-acting antiviral drugs can increase efficacy. But the new study included no data to address the prevalence of HCV genetic variants with resistance mutations that necessitate adding ribavirin. We have known that, in patients with cirrhosis and infected with resistant genotype 3 HCV, adding ribavirin is necessary. In many locations resistance testing is not possible; in those circumstances, adding ribavirin to the treatment should be routinely done.
Thomas Berg, MD, is professor and head of hepatology at University Hospital in Leipzig, Germany. He has received personal fees and research support from several companies. He made these comments in an interview.
The results from Dr. Drysdale’s analysis confirm what had previously been proposed by other investigators that, in a subgroup of patients with cirrhosis and infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 3, adding ribavirin to a regimen of direct-acting antiviral drugs can increase efficacy. But the new study included no data to address the prevalence of HCV genetic variants with resistance mutations that necessitate adding ribavirin. We have known that, in patients with cirrhosis and infected with resistant genotype 3 HCV, adding ribavirin is necessary. In many locations resistance testing is not possible; in those circumstances, adding ribavirin to the treatment should be routinely done.
Thomas Berg, MD, is professor and head of hepatology at University Hospital in Leipzig, Germany. He has received personal fees and research support from several companies. He made these comments in an interview.
VIENNA – In patients with compensated cirrhosis infected with genotype 3 hepatitis C virus, adding ribavirin to a usual antiviral regimen of sofosbuvir and velpatasvir significantly boosted the rate of sustained virologic response in a review of more than 14,000 English residents entered in a national registry starting in 2017.
With ribavirin added to a sofosbuvir plus velpatasvir regimen for 12 weeks of treatment, the three-drug combination produced a 98% rate of sustained virologic response after 12 weeks (SVR12) in 196 treated patients, Kate Drysdale, MBBCh, said at the meeting sponsored by the European Association for the Study of the Liver. In contrast, 218 compensated cirrhosis patients who received a 12-week regimen of sofosbuvir plus velpatasvir (Epclusa) but without ribavirin had an SVR12 rate of just under 92%, a statistically significant difference, compared with the rate among patients who also received ribavirin, said Dr. Drysdale, a gastroenterologist at Bart’s Health and Queen Mary University of London. The SVR12 rate among 167 compensated cirrhotic patients treated for 12 weeks with the combination of glecaprevir plus pibrentasvir (Mavyret) was 96%, and not statistically different from the patients who received three drugs including ribavirin. The sofosbuvir, velpatasvir, ribavirin combination also outperformed the combination of sofosbuvir plus daclatasvir (Daklinza) and ribavirin, which produced an SVR12 of 92% in 868 patients. The SVR12 rate is the percentage of patients with undetectable hepatitis C virus (HCV) 12 or more weeks after the end of treatment.
Dr. Drysdale cautioned that the data have not yet been put through a multivariate analysis, but the results so far provide “a strong indication that ribavirin may not be as insignificant” as many have recently presumed. “Ribavirin has been set aside because it was thought not to add to the SVR12, but if patients get only one go at treatment, we must be sure their first treatment is the best one,” Dr. Drysdale said in an interview. If ribavirin can be shown to make a significant contribution to treatment efficacy “then we should think more widely about using it when patients tolerate it.”
The analysis included too few patients with either current decompensated cirrhosis or a history of decompensated cirrhosis to make any statistically meaningful comparisons of the treatment subgroups among these patients. And among patients with genotype 3 HCV infection and without cirrhosis, none of the treatments used in practice showed any statistically significant differences in the SVR12 rates they produced. Among patients without cirrhosis the most commonly used regimens by far were an 8-week course of glecaprevir plus pibrentasvir in 731 patients or a 12-week course of sofosbuvir plus velpatasvir in 1,184 patients. Both regimens had SVR12 rates in noncirrhotic patients of 97%, regardless of whether patients had no, mild, or moderate liver fibrosis.
The study used data collected in an English national registry of HCV-infected patients treated with direct-acting antiviral drugs starting in 2017. Dr. Drysdale and her associates narrowed down the total database of more than 37,000 English adults who received some HCV therapy during the period to 14,603 who received a complete, valid regimen and had follow-up SVR12 information available. The overall SVR12 rate among all these patients was 95.59%, and among the patients infected by genotype 3 virus the SVR12 rate was 95.03%. Dr. Drysdale’s analysis focused primarily on the roughly one-third of patients in the study group infected with genotype 3 HCV, the genotype that historically has presented unique treatment challenges (Drugs. 2017 Feb;77[2]:131-44).
Another finding Dr. Drysdale reported was that as liver disease severity worsened from no fibrosis to mild or moderate fibrosis, and then to compensated cirrhosis or decompensation, the SVR12 rate steadily diminished. Among genotype 3 patients, the SVR12 rate fell from about 97% among patients without any fibrosis to about 87% among those with decompensated cirrhosis. Although this observation had been made before, this finding in such a large number of treated patients adds significant new evidence to support this pattern. It also adds further support to the idea of screening for HCV infection among higher-risk, asymptomatic people to optimize their prospects for virus eradication with treatment.
“If patients get much better treatment outcomes before they become cirrhotic then we should try to find these HCV-infected people before they develop symptoms,” Dr. Drysdale said.
Dr. Drysdale reported no disclosures.
SOURCE: Drysdale K et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April;70(1):e131.
VIENNA – In patients with compensated cirrhosis infected with genotype 3 hepatitis C virus, adding ribavirin to a usual antiviral regimen of sofosbuvir and velpatasvir significantly boosted the rate of sustained virologic response in a review of more than 14,000 English residents entered in a national registry starting in 2017.
With ribavirin added to a sofosbuvir plus velpatasvir regimen for 12 weeks of treatment, the three-drug combination produced a 98% rate of sustained virologic response after 12 weeks (SVR12) in 196 treated patients, Kate Drysdale, MBBCh, said at the meeting sponsored by the European Association for the Study of the Liver. In contrast, 218 compensated cirrhosis patients who received a 12-week regimen of sofosbuvir plus velpatasvir (Epclusa) but without ribavirin had an SVR12 rate of just under 92%, a statistically significant difference, compared with the rate among patients who also received ribavirin, said Dr. Drysdale, a gastroenterologist at Bart’s Health and Queen Mary University of London. The SVR12 rate among 167 compensated cirrhotic patients treated for 12 weeks with the combination of glecaprevir plus pibrentasvir (Mavyret) was 96%, and not statistically different from the patients who received three drugs including ribavirin. The sofosbuvir, velpatasvir, ribavirin combination also outperformed the combination of sofosbuvir plus daclatasvir (Daklinza) and ribavirin, which produced an SVR12 of 92% in 868 patients. The SVR12 rate is the percentage of patients with undetectable hepatitis C virus (HCV) 12 or more weeks after the end of treatment.
Dr. Drysdale cautioned that the data have not yet been put through a multivariate analysis, but the results so far provide “a strong indication that ribavirin may not be as insignificant” as many have recently presumed. “Ribavirin has been set aside because it was thought not to add to the SVR12, but if patients get only one go at treatment, we must be sure their first treatment is the best one,” Dr. Drysdale said in an interview. If ribavirin can be shown to make a significant contribution to treatment efficacy “then we should think more widely about using it when patients tolerate it.”
The analysis included too few patients with either current decompensated cirrhosis or a history of decompensated cirrhosis to make any statistically meaningful comparisons of the treatment subgroups among these patients. And among patients with genotype 3 HCV infection and without cirrhosis, none of the treatments used in practice showed any statistically significant differences in the SVR12 rates they produced. Among patients without cirrhosis the most commonly used regimens by far were an 8-week course of glecaprevir plus pibrentasvir in 731 patients or a 12-week course of sofosbuvir plus velpatasvir in 1,184 patients. Both regimens had SVR12 rates in noncirrhotic patients of 97%, regardless of whether patients had no, mild, or moderate liver fibrosis.
The study used data collected in an English national registry of HCV-infected patients treated with direct-acting antiviral drugs starting in 2017. Dr. Drysdale and her associates narrowed down the total database of more than 37,000 English adults who received some HCV therapy during the period to 14,603 who received a complete, valid regimen and had follow-up SVR12 information available. The overall SVR12 rate among all these patients was 95.59%, and among the patients infected by genotype 3 virus the SVR12 rate was 95.03%. Dr. Drysdale’s analysis focused primarily on the roughly one-third of patients in the study group infected with genotype 3 HCV, the genotype that historically has presented unique treatment challenges (Drugs. 2017 Feb;77[2]:131-44).
Another finding Dr. Drysdale reported was that as liver disease severity worsened from no fibrosis to mild or moderate fibrosis, and then to compensated cirrhosis or decompensation, the SVR12 rate steadily diminished. Among genotype 3 patients, the SVR12 rate fell from about 97% among patients without any fibrosis to about 87% among those with decompensated cirrhosis. Although this observation had been made before, this finding in such a large number of treated patients adds significant new evidence to support this pattern. It also adds further support to the idea of screening for HCV infection among higher-risk, asymptomatic people to optimize their prospects for virus eradication with treatment.
“If patients get much better treatment outcomes before they become cirrhotic then we should try to find these HCV-infected people before they develop symptoms,” Dr. Drysdale said.
Dr. Drysdale reported no disclosures.
SOURCE: Drysdale K et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April;70(1):e131.
REPORTING FROM ILC 2019
Fecal microbiota transplant shows promise for hepatic encephalopathy
VIENNA –
The oral fecal microbiota transplant (FMT), modeled on guideline-directed treatment for Clostridium difficile (Clin Infect Dis. 2018 April 1;66[7]:e1-48), was linked with a cut in hospitalizations and serious adverse events, as well as a clinically meaningful improvement in a cognitive measure specific for hepatic encephalopathy, Jasmohan S. Bajaj, MD, said at the meeting sponsored by the European Association for the Study of the Liver. Given the preliminary scope of the study, the next step is to assess the treatment in more patients and to evaluate delivery of the FMT specifically to the upper or lower gastrointestinal tract, said Dr. Bajaj, a hepatologist at Virginia Commonwealth University and McGuire VA Medical Center, both in Richmond.
The study included 20 patients with recurrent hepatic encephalopathy (RHE) and a history of at least two encephalopathy episodes despite treatment with lactulose and rifaximin (Xifaxan). After a baseline assessment, 10 patients received a single, oral dose of FMT contained in 15 capsules and composed of fecal material from the OpenBiome collection, and 10 patients received placebo capsules. All of the FMT material came from a single donor and contained a high level of beneficial microbial types, specifically Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae species. Patients averaged 64 years of age.
During 5 months of follow-up, 6 of the 10 placebo patients had a serious adverse event versus 1 of the 10 patients treated with an active FMT; altogether, there were 11 serious adverse events among the placebo patients versus only 1 event among the FMT patients, Dr. Bajaj reported. Three patients in the control arm had a total of seven hepatic encephalopathy events, compared with a single patient with one event in the intervention arm.
Enrolled patients also underwent two cognitive tests at baseline and during follow-up. Using a Stroop smartphone app (EncephalApp) designed to assess patients with RHE (Hepatology. 2013 Sept;58[3]:1122-32), the researchers found an average 51-second improvement in OffTime+OnTime, a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in the patients treated with FMT, whereas the control patients showed no statistically significant change in this parameter. The second cognitive measure was the average performance by patients using the Psychometric Hepatic Encephalopathy Score (Curr Gastroenterol Rep. 2014 Jan;16[1]:362), which showed no significant change after treatment in either study arm. The actively treated patients also showed favorable changes in the microbial composition of their stool and mucosa, as well as an enhanced small intestinal barrier, following treatment, Dr. Bajaj said.
SOURCE: Bajaj JS et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April;70[1]:e55.
VIENNA –
The oral fecal microbiota transplant (FMT), modeled on guideline-directed treatment for Clostridium difficile (Clin Infect Dis. 2018 April 1;66[7]:e1-48), was linked with a cut in hospitalizations and serious adverse events, as well as a clinically meaningful improvement in a cognitive measure specific for hepatic encephalopathy, Jasmohan S. Bajaj, MD, said at the meeting sponsored by the European Association for the Study of the Liver. Given the preliminary scope of the study, the next step is to assess the treatment in more patients and to evaluate delivery of the FMT specifically to the upper or lower gastrointestinal tract, said Dr. Bajaj, a hepatologist at Virginia Commonwealth University and McGuire VA Medical Center, both in Richmond.
The study included 20 patients with recurrent hepatic encephalopathy (RHE) and a history of at least two encephalopathy episodes despite treatment with lactulose and rifaximin (Xifaxan). After a baseline assessment, 10 patients received a single, oral dose of FMT contained in 15 capsules and composed of fecal material from the OpenBiome collection, and 10 patients received placebo capsules. All of the FMT material came from a single donor and contained a high level of beneficial microbial types, specifically Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae species. Patients averaged 64 years of age.
During 5 months of follow-up, 6 of the 10 placebo patients had a serious adverse event versus 1 of the 10 patients treated with an active FMT; altogether, there were 11 serious adverse events among the placebo patients versus only 1 event among the FMT patients, Dr. Bajaj reported. Three patients in the control arm had a total of seven hepatic encephalopathy events, compared with a single patient with one event in the intervention arm.
Enrolled patients also underwent two cognitive tests at baseline and during follow-up. Using a Stroop smartphone app (EncephalApp) designed to assess patients with RHE (Hepatology. 2013 Sept;58[3]:1122-32), the researchers found an average 51-second improvement in OffTime+OnTime, a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in the patients treated with FMT, whereas the control patients showed no statistically significant change in this parameter. The second cognitive measure was the average performance by patients using the Psychometric Hepatic Encephalopathy Score (Curr Gastroenterol Rep. 2014 Jan;16[1]:362), which showed no significant change after treatment in either study arm. The actively treated patients also showed favorable changes in the microbial composition of their stool and mucosa, as well as an enhanced small intestinal barrier, following treatment, Dr. Bajaj said.
SOURCE: Bajaj JS et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April;70[1]:e55.
VIENNA –
The oral fecal microbiota transplant (FMT), modeled on guideline-directed treatment for Clostridium difficile (Clin Infect Dis. 2018 April 1;66[7]:e1-48), was linked with a cut in hospitalizations and serious adverse events, as well as a clinically meaningful improvement in a cognitive measure specific for hepatic encephalopathy, Jasmohan S. Bajaj, MD, said at the meeting sponsored by the European Association for the Study of the Liver. Given the preliminary scope of the study, the next step is to assess the treatment in more patients and to evaluate delivery of the FMT specifically to the upper or lower gastrointestinal tract, said Dr. Bajaj, a hepatologist at Virginia Commonwealth University and McGuire VA Medical Center, both in Richmond.
The study included 20 patients with recurrent hepatic encephalopathy (RHE) and a history of at least two encephalopathy episodes despite treatment with lactulose and rifaximin (Xifaxan). After a baseline assessment, 10 patients received a single, oral dose of FMT contained in 15 capsules and composed of fecal material from the OpenBiome collection, and 10 patients received placebo capsules. All of the FMT material came from a single donor and contained a high level of beneficial microbial types, specifically Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae species. Patients averaged 64 years of age.
During 5 months of follow-up, 6 of the 10 placebo patients had a serious adverse event versus 1 of the 10 patients treated with an active FMT; altogether, there were 11 serious adverse events among the placebo patients versus only 1 event among the FMT patients, Dr. Bajaj reported. Three patients in the control arm had a total of seven hepatic encephalopathy events, compared with a single patient with one event in the intervention arm.
Enrolled patients also underwent two cognitive tests at baseline and during follow-up. Using a Stroop smartphone app (EncephalApp) designed to assess patients with RHE (Hepatology. 2013 Sept;58[3]:1122-32), the researchers found an average 51-second improvement in OffTime+OnTime, a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in the patients treated with FMT, whereas the control patients showed no statistically significant change in this parameter. The second cognitive measure was the average performance by patients using the Psychometric Hepatic Encephalopathy Score (Curr Gastroenterol Rep. 2014 Jan;16[1]:362), which showed no significant change after treatment in either study arm. The actively treated patients also showed favorable changes in the microbial composition of their stool and mucosa, as well as an enhanced small intestinal barrier, following treatment, Dr. Bajaj said.
SOURCE: Bajaj JS et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April;70[1]:e55.
REPORTING FROM ILC 2019
VIDEO: Givosiran cuts acute intermittent porphyria attacks in pivotal trial
VIENNA – A .
Although the study also identified some safety issues with givosiran, an RNA-inhibitor molecule delivered by subcutaneous injection once a month, the increases in liver enzyme levels it produced in some patients as well as decreased renal function did not seem severe or frequent enough to counterbalance the benefits to treated patients, who often have significant comorbidities and adverse effects because of their disease, Manisha Balwani, MD, said at the meeting sponsored by the European Association for the Study of the Liver. Among the 48 patients assigned to the givosiran group, one patient dropped out because of an adverse effect of treatment.
The results put givosiran on track to become the first Food and Drug Administration–approved treatment for acute hepatic porphyria, a set of similar, rare genetic diseases that produce symptoms in about 1 in every 10,000 people, although asymptomatic disease is likely more common (Hepatol Commun. 2019 Feb;3[2]:193-206). The trial outcomes were also notable for the dramatic improvements in life-disrupting symptoms like pain, nausea, and fatigue that many treated patients experienced.
Patients’ lives were “completely transformed” by givosiran treatment, Dr. Balwani said in a video interview. Patients also had a reduced need for analgesics, including opioids, said Dr. Balwani, a medical geneticist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
The ENVISION (A Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Givosiran [ALN-AS1] in Patients With Acute Hepatic Porphyrias) study randomized 94 patients who were at least 12 years old and diagnosed with an acute hepatic porphyria, and had experienced at least two porphyria attacks during the prior 6 months. The study ran at 36 sites in 18 countries. Enrolled patients averaged about 39 years old, and had been diagnosed with a hepatic porphyria for an average of about 6 years. During the study, patients did not receive hemin (Panhematin) prophylaxis.
The study’s primary endpoint was the average annualized rate of porphyria attacks during 6 months of treatment, which was 3.2 attacks in 46 patients evaluable for efficacy on givosiran treatment and 12.5 attacks in 43 patients evaluable for efficacy in the control group, a 74% reduction in attacks with givosiran that was statistically significant, Dr. Balwani reported. The percentage of patients with no attacks during the study was 16% among control patients and 50% among those on givosiran. Future analysis of the study data will attempt to identify the patients with the best responses to givosiran.
Among the full cohort of 94 patients enrolled in the study, 21% of the givosiran-treated patients had a adverse reaction, and 17% had a severe adverse reaction, compared with rates of 9% and 11%, respectively, among controls. Three of the serious adverse reactions were judged related to givosiran treatment: one patient with pyrexia, one with abnormal liver function test results, and one patient who developed chronic kidney disease. A total of two patients in the givosiran group developed chronic kidney disease that warranted elective hospitalization for diagnostic evaluation, and an additional three patients on the drug developed chronic kidney disease that did not require hospitalization. Nausea affected 27% of patients on givosiran and 11% of the control patients. Injection-site reactions occurred in 17% of those on givosiran and in none of the placebo patients. An elevation in the serum level of alanine aminotransferase to more than three times the upper limit of normal of baseline occurred in 15% of the givosiran-treated patients and in 2% of the placebo patients.
Givosiran’s small RNA molecule inhibits production of 5‐aminolevulinic acid synthase 1 (ALAS‐1), the rate-limiting enzyme that drives production of the heme precursor molecules that are pathophysiologic in patients with acute hepatic porphyria.
SOURCE: Balwani M et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April 70(1):e81-2.
VIENNA – A .
Although the study also identified some safety issues with givosiran, an RNA-inhibitor molecule delivered by subcutaneous injection once a month, the increases in liver enzyme levels it produced in some patients as well as decreased renal function did not seem severe or frequent enough to counterbalance the benefits to treated patients, who often have significant comorbidities and adverse effects because of their disease, Manisha Balwani, MD, said at the meeting sponsored by the European Association for the Study of the Liver. Among the 48 patients assigned to the givosiran group, one patient dropped out because of an adverse effect of treatment.
The results put givosiran on track to become the first Food and Drug Administration–approved treatment for acute hepatic porphyria, a set of similar, rare genetic diseases that produce symptoms in about 1 in every 10,000 people, although asymptomatic disease is likely more common (Hepatol Commun. 2019 Feb;3[2]:193-206). The trial outcomes were also notable for the dramatic improvements in life-disrupting symptoms like pain, nausea, and fatigue that many treated patients experienced.
Patients’ lives were “completely transformed” by givosiran treatment, Dr. Balwani said in a video interview. Patients also had a reduced need for analgesics, including opioids, said Dr. Balwani, a medical geneticist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
The ENVISION (A Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Givosiran [ALN-AS1] in Patients With Acute Hepatic Porphyrias) study randomized 94 patients who were at least 12 years old and diagnosed with an acute hepatic porphyria, and had experienced at least two porphyria attacks during the prior 6 months. The study ran at 36 sites in 18 countries. Enrolled patients averaged about 39 years old, and had been diagnosed with a hepatic porphyria for an average of about 6 years. During the study, patients did not receive hemin (Panhematin) prophylaxis.
The study’s primary endpoint was the average annualized rate of porphyria attacks during 6 months of treatment, which was 3.2 attacks in 46 patients evaluable for efficacy on givosiran treatment and 12.5 attacks in 43 patients evaluable for efficacy in the control group, a 74% reduction in attacks with givosiran that was statistically significant, Dr. Balwani reported. The percentage of patients with no attacks during the study was 16% among control patients and 50% among those on givosiran. Future analysis of the study data will attempt to identify the patients with the best responses to givosiran.
Among the full cohort of 94 patients enrolled in the study, 21% of the givosiran-treated patients had a adverse reaction, and 17% had a severe adverse reaction, compared with rates of 9% and 11%, respectively, among controls. Three of the serious adverse reactions were judged related to givosiran treatment: one patient with pyrexia, one with abnormal liver function test results, and one patient who developed chronic kidney disease. A total of two patients in the givosiran group developed chronic kidney disease that warranted elective hospitalization for diagnostic evaluation, and an additional three patients on the drug developed chronic kidney disease that did not require hospitalization. Nausea affected 27% of patients on givosiran and 11% of the control patients. Injection-site reactions occurred in 17% of those on givosiran and in none of the placebo patients. An elevation in the serum level of alanine aminotransferase to more than three times the upper limit of normal of baseline occurred in 15% of the givosiran-treated patients and in 2% of the placebo patients.
Givosiran’s small RNA molecule inhibits production of 5‐aminolevulinic acid synthase 1 (ALAS‐1), the rate-limiting enzyme that drives production of the heme precursor molecules that are pathophysiologic in patients with acute hepatic porphyria.
SOURCE: Balwani M et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April 70(1):e81-2.
VIENNA – A .
Although the study also identified some safety issues with givosiran, an RNA-inhibitor molecule delivered by subcutaneous injection once a month, the increases in liver enzyme levels it produced in some patients as well as decreased renal function did not seem severe or frequent enough to counterbalance the benefits to treated patients, who often have significant comorbidities and adverse effects because of their disease, Manisha Balwani, MD, said at the meeting sponsored by the European Association for the Study of the Liver. Among the 48 patients assigned to the givosiran group, one patient dropped out because of an adverse effect of treatment.
The results put givosiran on track to become the first Food and Drug Administration–approved treatment for acute hepatic porphyria, a set of similar, rare genetic diseases that produce symptoms in about 1 in every 10,000 people, although asymptomatic disease is likely more common (Hepatol Commun. 2019 Feb;3[2]:193-206). The trial outcomes were also notable for the dramatic improvements in life-disrupting symptoms like pain, nausea, and fatigue that many treated patients experienced.
Patients’ lives were “completely transformed” by givosiran treatment, Dr. Balwani said in a video interview. Patients also had a reduced need for analgesics, including opioids, said Dr. Balwani, a medical geneticist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
The ENVISION (A Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Givosiran [ALN-AS1] in Patients With Acute Hepatic Porphyrias) study randomized 94 patients who were at least 12 years old and diagnosed with an acute hepatic porphyria, and had experienced at least two porphyria attacks during the prior 6 months. The study ran at 36 sites in 18 countries. Enrolled patients averaged about 39 years old, and had been diagnosed with a hepatic porphyria for an average of about 6 years. During the study, patients did not receive hemin (Panhematin) prophylaxis.
The study’s primary endpoint was the average annualized rate of porphyria attacks during 6 months of treatment, which was 3.2 attacks in 46 patients evaluable for efficacy on givosiran treatment and 12.5 attacks in 43 patients evaluable for efficacy in the control group, a 74% reduction in attacks with givosiran that was statistically significant, Dr. Balwani reported. The percentage of patients with no attacks during the study was 16% among control patients and 50% among those on givosiran. Future analysis of the study data will attempt to identify the patients with the best responses to givosiran.
Among the full cohort of 94 patients enrolled in the study, 21% of the givosiran-treated patients had a adverse reaction, and 17% had a severe adverse reaction, compared with rates of 9% and 11%, respectively, among controls. Three of the serious adverse reactions were judged related to givosiran treatment: one patient with pyrexia, one with abnormal liver function test results, and one patient who developed chronic kidney disease. A total of two patients in the givosiran group developed chronic kidney disease that warranted elective hospitalization for diagnostic evaluation, and an additional three patients on the drug developed chronic kidney disease that did not require hospitalization. Nausea affected 27% of patients on givosiran and 11% of the control patients. Injection-site reactions occurred in 17% of those on givosiran and in none of the placebo patients. An elevation in the serum level of alanine aminotransferase to more than three times the upper limit of normal of baseline occurred in 15% of the givosiran-treated patients and in 2% of the placebo patients.
Givosiran’s small RNA molecule inhibits production of 5‐aminolevulinic acid synthase 1 (ALAS‐1), the rate-limiting enzyme that drives production of the heme precursor molecules that are pathophysiologic in patients with acute hepatic porphyria.
SOURCE: Balwani M et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April 70(1):e81-2.
REPORTING FROM ILC 2019
Key clinical point: Givosiran cut acute hepatic porphyria attacks in its pivotal trial.
Major finding: Patients treated with givosiran had 74% fewer acute porphyria attacks, compared with patients on placebo.
Study details: ENVISION, an international pivotal trial with 94 patients.
Disclosures: ENVISION was funded by Alnylam, the company developing givosiran. Dr. Balwani has been an advisor to and has received research funding from Alnylam. The center where Dr. Balwani works, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York, holds patents related to givosiran that it has licensed to Amnylam.
Source: Balwani M et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April 70(1):e81-2.
Tenofovir disoproxil treated HBV with fewer future HCCs
VIENNA – Treatment of individuals chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV) with the nucleotide analog tenofovir disoproxil fumarate significantly linked with a substantial cut in the incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) compared with those who received the nucleoside analog entecavir, according to a review of more than 29,000 Hong Kong patients.
This is the second reported study to find that association. In January 2019, a study of more than 24,000 Korean residents chronically infected with HBV showed a similar, statistically significant link between treatment with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (Viread) and a lower incidence of HCC compared with patients treated with entecavir (Baraclude) (JAMA Oncol. 2019 Jan;5[1]:30-6), Grace L.H. Wong, MD, said at the meeting, sponsored by the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL).
However, another report published just a few days before Dr. Wong spoke failed to find an association between tenofovir disoproxil treatment of HBV and the subsequent rate of HCC compared with patients treated with entecavir. That study comprised nearly 2,900 HBV patients treated at any of four Korean medical centers (J Hepatol. 2019 Apr. doi: 10.1016/j.jhep.2019.03.028).
Dr. Wong noted that although current guidelines from EASL cite both tenofovir disoproxil and entecavir (as well as tenofovir alafenamide [Vemlidy]) as first-line treatments for chronic HBV infection (J Hepatol. 2017 Aug;67[2]:370-98), some evidence suggests that tenofovir disoproxil might produce effects subtly different from those of entecavir.
At the meeting in Vienna, for example, a report on 176 Japanese patients with chronic HBV showed that those who were treated with a nucleotide analog such as tenofovir disoproxil produced higher serum levels of interferon-lamda3 compared with patients treated with entecavir, and increased levels of this interferon could improve clearance of HBV surface antigen (J Hepatol. 2019 April;70[1]:e477). The most recent EASL guidelines for treatment of chronic hepatitis B infection also list tenofovir disoproxil, entecavir, and tenofovir alafenamide as preferred agents (Hepatology. 2018 April;67[4]:1560-99).
The data Dr. Wong and her associates analyzed came from health records kept for about 80% of Hong Kong’s population in the Clinical Data Analysis and Recording System of the Hospital Authority of Hong Kong. From January 2010 to June 2018, this database included 28,041 consecutive patients chronically infected with HBV and treated with entecavir, and 1,309 consecutive patients treated with tenofovir disoproxil. These numbers excluded patients treated for less than 6 months, patients coinfected with hepatitis C or D virus, patients with cancer diagnosed or a liver transplanted before or during their first 6 months on treatment, and patients previously treated with an interferon or nucleos(t)ide.
During an average follow-up of 2.8 years of tenofovir disoproxil treatment, 8 patients developed HCC, and during an average follow-up of 3.7 years of entecavir treatment, 1,386 patients developed HCC, reported Dr. Wong, a hepatologist and professor of medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
In a multivariate analysis that adjusted for demographic and clinical differences, treatment with tenofovir disoproxil linked with a statistically significant 68% reduced rate of HCC development compared with the entecavir-treated patients, she said. In a propensity score–weighted analysis, tenofovir disoproxil linked with a statistically significant 64% reduced rate of incident HCC, and in a propensity score–matched analysis tenofovir disoproxil linked with a 58% reduced rate of HCC, although in this analysis, which excluded many of the entecavir-treated patients and hence had less statistical power, the difference just missed statistical significance.
As an additional step to try to rule out the possible effect of unadjusted confounders, Dr. Wong and associates analyzed the links between tenofovir disoproxil and entecavir treatment and two negative-control outcomes, the incidence of lung cancer and the incidence of acute myocardial infarction. Neither of these outcomes showed a statistically significant link with one of the HBV treatments, suggesting that the link between treatment and HCC incidence did not appear because of an unadjusted confounding bias, Dr. Wong said. The Hong Kong database did not include enough patients treated with tenofovir alafenamide to allow assessment of this drug, she added.
Dr. Wong has been an adviser to Gilead and a speaker for Abbott, AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead, Janssen, and Roche. Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate is marketed by Gilead, and entecavir is marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
SOURCE: Wong GL et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April;70[1]:e128.
VIENNA – Treatment of individuals chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV) with the nucleotide analog tenofovir disoproxil fumarate significantly linked with a substantial cut in the incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) compared with those who received the nucleoside analog entecavir, according to a review of more than 29,000 Hong Kong patients.
This is the second reported study to find that association. In January 2019, a study of more than 24,000 Korean residents chronically infected with HBV showed a similar, statistically significant link between treatment with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (Viread) and a lower incidence of HCC compared with patients treated with entecavir (Baraclude) (JAMA Oncol. 2019 Jan;5[1]:30-6), Grace L.H. Wong, MD, said at the meeting, sponsored by the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL).
However, another report published just a few days before Dr. Wong spoke failed to find an association between tenofovir disoproxil treatment of HBV and the subsequent rate of HCC compared with patients treated with entecavir. That study comprised nearly 2,900 HBV patients treated at any of four Korean medical centers (J Hepatol. 2019 Apr. doi: 10.1016/j.jhep.2019.03.028).
Dr. Wong noted that although current guidelines from EASL cite both tenofovir disoproxil and entecavir (as well as tenofovir alafenamide [Vemlidy]) as first-line treatments for chronic HBV infection (J Hepatol. 2017 Aug;67[2]:370-98), some evidence suggests that tenofovir disoproxil might produce effects subtly different from those of entecavir.
At the meeting in Vienna, for example, a report on 176 Japanese patients with chronic HBV showed that those who were treated with a nucleotide analog such as tenofovir disoproxil produced higher serum levels of interferon-lamda3 compared with patients treated with entecavir, and increased levels of this interferon could improve clearance of HBV surface antigen (J Hepatol. 2019 April;70[1]:e477). The most recent EASL guidelines for treatment of chronic hepatitis B infection also list tenofovir disoproxil, entecavir, and tenofovir alafenamide as preferred agents (Hepatology. 2018 April;67[4]:1560-99).
The data Dr. Wong and her associates analyzed came from health records kept for about 80% of Hong Kong’s population in the Clinical Data Analysis and Recording System of the Hospital Authority of Hong Kong. From January 2010 to June 2018, this database included 28,041 consecutive patients chronically infected with HBV and treated with entecavir, and 1,309 consecutive patients treated with tenofovir disoproxil. These numbers excluded patients treated for less than 6 months, patients coinfected with hepatitis C or D virus, patients with cancer diagnosed or a liver transplanted before or during their first 6 months on treatment, and patients previously treated with an interferon or nucleos(t)ide.
During an average follow-up of 2.8 years of tenofovir disoproxil treatment, 8 patients developed HCC, and during an average follow-up of 3.7 years of entecavir treatment, 1,386 patients developed HCC, reported Dr. Wong, a hepatologist and professor of medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
In a multivariate analysis that adjusted for demographic and clinical differences, treatment with tenofovir disoproxil linked with a statistically significant 68% reduced rate of HCC development compared with the entecavir-treated patients, she said. In a propensity score–weighted analysis, tenofovir disoproxil linked with a statistically significant 64% reduced rate of incident HCC, and in a propensity score–matched analysis tenofovir disoproxil linked with a 58% reduced rate of HCC, although in this analysis, which excluded many of the entecavir-treated patients and hence had less statistical power, the difference just missed statistical significance.
As an additional step to try to rule out the possible effect of unadjusted confounders, Dr. Wong and associates analyzed the links between tenofovir disoproxil and entecavir treatment and two negative-control outcomes, the incidence of lung cancer and the incidence of acute myocardial infarction. Neither of these outcomes showed a statistically significant link with one of the HBV treatments, suggesting that the link between treatment and HCC incidence did not appear because of an unadjusted confounding bias, Dr. Wong said. The Hong Kong database did not include enough patients treated with tenofovir alafenamide to allow assessment of this drug, she added.
Dr. Wong has been an adviser to Gilead and a speaker for Abbott, AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead, Janssen, and Roche. Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate is marketed by Gilead, and entecavir is marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
SOURCE: Wong GL et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April;70[1]:e128.
VIENNA – Treatment of individuals chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV) with the nucleotide analog tenofovir disoproxil fumarate significantly linked with a substantial cut in the incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) compared with those who received the nucleoside analog entecavir, according to a review of more than 29,000 Hong Kong patients.
This is the second reported study to find that association. In January 2019, a study of more than 24,000 Korean residents chronically infected with HBV showed a similar, statistically significant link between treatment with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (Viread) and a lower incidence of HCC compared with patients treated with entecavir (Baraclude) (JAMA Oncol. 2019 Jan;5[1]:30-6), Grace L.H. Wong, MD, said at the meeting, sponsored by the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL).
However, another report published just a few days before Dr. Wong spoke failed to find an association between tenofovir disoproxil treatment of HBV and the subsequent rate of HCC compared with patients treated with entecavir. That study comprised nearly 2,900 HBV patients treated at any of four Korean medical centers (J Hepatol. 2019 Apr. doi: 10.1016/j.jhep.2019.03.028).
Dr. Wong noted that although current guidelines from EASL cite both tenofovir disoproxil and entecavir (as well as tenofovir alafenamide [Vemlidy]) as first-line treatments for chronic HBV infection (J Hepatol. 2017 Aug;67[2]:370-98), some evidence suggests that tenofovir disoproxil might produce effects subtly different from those of entecavir.
At the meeting in Vienna, for example, a report on 176 Japanese patients with chronic HBV showed that those who were treated with a nucleotide analog such as tenofovir disoproxil produced higher serum levels of interferon-lamda3 compared with patients treated with entecavir, and increased levels of this interferon could improve clearance of HBV surface antigen (J Hepatol. 2019 April;70[1]:e477). The most recent EASL guidelines for treatment of chronic hepatitis B infection also list tenofovir disoproxil, entecavir, and tenofovir alafenamide as preferred agents (Hepatology. 2018 April;67[4]:1560-99).
The data Dr. Wong and her associates analyzed came from health records kept for about 80% of Hong Kong’s population in the Clinical Data Analysis and Recording System of the Hospital Authority of Hong Kong. From January 2010 to June 2018, this database included 28,041 consecutive patients chronically infected with HBV and treated with entecavir, and 1,309 consecutive patients treated with tenofovir disoproxil. These numbers excluded patients treated for less than 6 months, patients coinfected with hepatitis C or D virus, patients with cancer diagnosed or a liver transplanted before or during their first 6 months on treatment, and patients previously treated with an interferon or nucleos(t)ide.
During an average follow-up of 2.8 years of tenofovir disoproxil treatment, 8 patients developed HCC, and during an average follow-up of 3.7 years of entecavir treatment, 1,386 patients developed HCC, reported Dr. Wong, a hepatologist and professor of medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
In a multivariate analysis that adjusted for demographic and clinical differences, treatment with tenofovir disoproxil linked with a statistically significant 68% reduced rate of HCC development compared with the entecavir-treated patients, she said. In a propensity score–weighted analysis, tenofovir disoproxil linked with a statistically significant 64% reduced rate of incident HCC, and in a propensity score–matched analysis tenofovir disoproxil linked with a 58% reduced rate of HCC, although in this analysis, which excluded many of the entecavir-treated patients and hence had less statistical power, the difference just missed statistical significance.
As an additional step to try to rule out the possible effect of unadjusted confounders, Dr. Wong and associates analyzed the links between tenofovir disoproxil and entecavir treatment and two negative-control outcomes, the incidence of lung cancer and the incidence of acute myocardial infarction. Neither of these outcomes showed a statistically significant link with one of the HBV treatments, suggesting that the link between treatment and HCC incidence did not appear because of an unadjusted confounding bias, Dr. Wong said. The Hong Kong database did not include enough patients treated with tenofovir alafenamide to allow assessment of this drug, she added.
Dr. Wong has been an adviser to Gilead and a speaker for Abbott, AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead, Janssen, and Roche. Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate is marketed by Gilead, and entecavir is marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
SOURCE: Wong GL et al. J Hepatol. 2019 April;70[1]:e128.
REPORTING FROM ILC 2019