Heart patients to get breakthrough tablet on the NHS
MORE heart failure patients are to be offered a pill that cuts deaths and hospitalisations by a quarter – and vastly improves quality of life. Last month NHS spending watchdogs approved the new medication, empagliflozin, for those with the most severe form of the disease who had failed to respond to other treatments.
Now, just weeks later, doctors say health chiefs are poised to also offer the drug to sufferers who still have relatively strong heart function – known as ‘preserved’ heart failure – in an effort to slow the progression of the disease.
Cardiologist Dr Sharmaine Thirunavukarasu, who headed up a University of Leeds study of empagliflozin, said the move could vastly improve survival rates in the UK.
‘This is a revolutionary drug and trials show it clearly cuts hospitalisations and deaths even in patients at an earlier stage,’ she said. ‘Soon we will have medication to offer almost all patients, from those with severe disease to people with earlier stage heart failure, to help prevent them deteriorating quickly.’
Heart failure affects nearly one million Britons and occurs when the heart becomes too weak or stiff and is unable to pump blood effectively round the body.
While there have been a number of major treatment advances in recent decades, one in five patients with heart failure still dies within a year of diagnosis.
In December, wool hat-wearing Monkees star Mike Nesmith died
due to the condition aged 78. Those living with heart failure experience a number of debilitating symptoms, including extreme breathlessness and crushing fatigue.
Sufferers are often hospitalised, and there are roughly 86,000 emergency heart failure hospital admissions every year.
Around half of patients have a form of the disease known as heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, or HFrEF, which means the amount of blood the organ can pump out with each beat is significantly less than it should be.
The other half have heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, or HFpEF, a less severe form. Most HFpEF patients deteriorate and a transplant is the only real cure.
Empagliflozin was initially designed to combat heart failure in type 2 diabetes patients. But diabetes doctors soon noted that patients taking it were more likely to see their heart function and blood pressure improve than those who didn’t.
In June 2021, The Mail on Sunday revealed that a University of Leeds trial which observed a group of type 2 diabetes patients on the drug, found that empagliflozin had a direct effect on the heart muscle, making it stronger.
Patients on the trial, run by Dr Thirunavukarasu, also lost weight.
Meanwhile UK study data presented to NHS spending body the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, showed that patients with HFrEF who took empagliflozin alongside their current medications were 25 per cent less likely to be hospitalised or die from heart failure.
Another trial, run simultaneously, showed that patients with HFpEF who took the drug were 20 per cent less likely to end up in hospital with heart problems. Doctors say this is significant because, until now, there have been very few treatments which can effectively treat heart failure HFpEF patients, who instead are forced to wait until their condition deteriorates before they receive medication.
Martin Sheehan, 74, from North London, was one of the first heart failure patients in Britain to benefit from empagliflozin after he began taking the drug five years ago.
THE married fatherof-three was hospitalised with severe heart failure 14 years ago, and had an implanted defibrillator, and was taking a number of heart tablets. Martin, a former lorry driver, says despite this, his condition continued to deteriorate. He was enrolled on an empagliflozin trial, and was told to take one pill a day on top of his other medications.
‘After a few weeks I could feel I was getting my breath back. Going up stairs wasn’t a problem and I could walk around without needing to sit down. Every time I went back to the hospital, they said my heart was looking good and tests showed there were no problems.’
Best of all, Martin says he can get up and dance at parties now. ‘I used to struggle to even have a slow waltz at birthdays. Now, I can last a whole record without needing to take a break and can have a laugh.’