UMCG: Low-Dose Digoxin Cuts Heart-Failure Hospitalizations 25%
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- UMCG cardiologists Dirk Jan van Veldhuisen, Kevin Damman, and Peter van der Meer led three studies showing low-dose digoxin reduced heart-failure hospitalizations by an average of 25%, with the findings published in Nature Medicine and JAMA and presented at the ESC Heart Failure Congress in Barcelona.
- One randomized trial enrolled 1,000 heart-failure patients across 43 Dutch centers for an average of three years, and though digoxin cut cardiovascular deaths by 19%, that individual endpoint did not reach statistical significance.
- A meta-analysis combining the trial data with two earlier studies produced a statistically significant benefit even for patients already on the four standard heart-failure medications, known as the 'Fantastic Four.'
- A third study tracking roughly 600 participants found that patients who stopped digoxin had significantly more problems in the first six weeks off the drug, with 14 of 288 patients being hospitalized or dying.
- Digoxin has been used for centuries and costs less than ten cents per day, compared with several euros per day for many newer heart-failure medications, yet only about 15% of heart-failure patients currently receive it.
- Hartstichting funded the research with 3 million euros through its ZonMw collaboration under the Good Use of Medicines program, addressing the difficulty of funding studies on older, inexpensive drugs.
- Heart failure affects more than 500,000 people in the Netherlands, a number expected to grow, making the researchers' call for guideline changes potentially relevant to a large patient population.
Why it matters: If guidelines adopt low-dose digoxin as a fifth therapy alongside the existing 'Fantastic Four,' more than 500,000 Dutch heart-failure patients and millions worldwide could gain access to a treatment that costs under ten cents a day versus several euros for newer drugs, potentially cutting hospitalizations by a quarter while easing health-system costs.
Ask SkimNews
