Study touts heart disease drug combination
Published in the Nov. 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the highly publicized study findings showed that a combination of medications dramatically reduced death and slowed disease progression in blacks with serious heart disease.
The medications—hydralazine and isosorbide dinitrate—worked so well together that investigators halted their multi-center trial early so the more than 1,000 study participants could all be put on the same treatment. The drug combination reduced the death rate by 43 percent in study patients in the first year.
The study, called the African-American Heart Failure Trial, or A-HeFT, involved patients from 161 centers across the nation.
For Uri Elkayam, professor of medicine at the Keck School , director of the Heart Failure Program and principal investigator of A-HeFT at USC, the study was a success for two reasons: He and his Keck School colleagues not only contributed patients to A-HeFT, but a decade ago, they were the first to show that hydralazine prevented nitrate tolerance, a phenomenon that results in an early attenuation of nitrates’ effects.
“It is gratifying to see our research eventually result in a therapy that we always believed would substantially boost the treatment of heart failure,” said Elkayam.
The results of the study are particularly impressive since hydralazine and isosorbide demonstrate reduced mortality beyond effective standard therapy for heart failure, he noted.
Hydralazine and isosorbide dinitrate are existing drugs that cardiologists have used to treat numerous heart conditions. Unfortunately, patients often become resistant to the beneficial effects of isosorbide dinitrate and other nitrate drugs, such as nitroglycerine.
In December 1995, Elkayam and his USC research team published a pilot study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology showing that hydralazine seemed to help patients with heart failure from becoming resistant to nitroglycerin.
Today, researchers still are not sure why the drugs work well together, but they suspect that nitrates may work by creating nitric oxide, which causes vasodilation—the dilation of blood vessels—and helps protect the cardiovascular system. As an antioxidant, hydralazine might reduce oxidative stress and prevent nitric oxide inactivation.
Researchers restricted participants in A-HeFT to black patients because blacks have a disproportionate rate of heart failure and other cardiovascular disease and because previous research demonstrated that black patients responded well to these drugs.
“Although the study focused on African-American patients, multiple studies by our group and other research groups have previously shown a beneficial effect of these drugs on the hemodynamics, ability to exercise and function of the heart in Caucasians and Hispanic patients with heart failure,” Elkayam said. “For these reasons, I believe that the A-HeFT therapy will be useful for non-black patients as well.”
About 5 million Americans have some form of heart failure, which has treatments, but no cure. More than 50 percent of patients die within five years of diagnosis.
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The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned USC’s $6 billion fundraising campaign. The story noted that USC had already raised $1 billion in a “quiet phase,” including the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College.
The Guardian (U.K.) highlighted two major gifts to USC in a list of the 10 biggest philanthropic benefactors in America. The list included the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
The New York Times featured the USC U.S.-China Institute documentary “Assignment: China — The Week that Changed the World.” The documentary, part of a series, examines media coverage of the 1972 Nixon trip that reshaped U.S.-China relations after a quarter century of isolation and hostility. “People look back now and take it for granted that the outcome was preordained,” said the institute’s Mike Chinoy, who produced the documentary. Voice of America also featured the story.
Los Angeles Times featured the Oscar Senti-meter, a tool developed by the USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times and IBM that analyzes thousands of tweets about the Academy Awards nominees. The story noted that Mexican actor Demian Bechir received an enormous boost on Twitter the day of the nominations, with a total of 6,893 tweets mentioning him, a 47-fold increase from the day before. The story noted the tool uses language-recognition technology developed in collaboration with USC Viterbi School’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab.
The Times of India (India) featured a three-day medical emergency training workshop organized in association with USC. At the workshop, held at GCS Medical College in India, 50 doctors and more than 100 paramedics learned how to improve emergency support systems. William Mallon of the Keck School of USC said that discussion topics included the use of portable ultrasonic devices to scan patients. “The ultrasound applications help physicians make accurate and timely decisions,” he noted. Daily News & Analysis (India) also featured the workshop.
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