| Summary: | Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of ivabradine on symptoms, quality of life, effort tolerance, and echocardiographic parameters in patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy presenting with New York Heart Association (NYHA) class III or IV heart failure (HF) symptoms.
Methods: We screened 167 patients hospitalized for NYHA class III or IV chronic HF symptoms and left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction <40%. Of these, 53 were randomly assigned to either guidelines-based medical therapy alone (23 patients, control group) or ivabradine as add-on therapy (30 patients) for 3 months with about 1 year follow up.
Results: After 3 months’ treatment, adding ivabradine significantly reduced the heart rate from 96 to 72 bpm (p < 0.0001 versus control group), with more improvement in echocardiographic LV dimensions, LV volumes, LV ejection fraction (p = 0.045), NYHA class symptoms (p = 0.004), exercise tolerance (p = 0.03), and quality of life (p = 0.02). The average number of hospitalizations for HF over a mean longer-term follow-up of 13.5 months was 1.0 ± 1.4 in the ivabradine group versus 2.1 ± 1.1 in the control group (p = 0.003). Heart rate reduction was significantly correlated with better exercise tolerance, quality of life, LV ejection fraction, and NYHA class, together with fewer HF hospitalizations. Multivariate analysis showed heart rate reduction to be a stronger predictor for better LV ejection fraction (p = 0.024) and decreased hospitalizations than ivabradine use.
Conclusion: Adding ivabradine to optimal medical treatment in HF patients improved symptoms, quality of life, effort tolerance, and echocardiographic parameters, and reduced hospitalization. This beneficial ivabradine effect is probably due to its heart rate–reducing properties.
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