Heart failure drug studied at USC may bolster survival Heart failure drug studied at USC may bolster survival by Alicia Di Rado USC cardiologists have helped lead the charge in bringing a new, more effective therapy to patients suffering from life-threatening heart failure. USC was one of 40 centers participating in the drug study, and accounted for 15 percent of all patients enrolled. In a patient with heart failure, the heart cannot pump blood efficiently enough to meet the needs of the body's other organs. Once a patient gets to the hospital, doctors administer medication intravenously to help alleviate the symptoms as soon as possible. Physicians in the study measured the pressure within each patient's lungs and heart, he explained.
High pressure contributes to shortness of breath.
The researchers found that nesiritide reduced the pressure faster and more significantly within the first three hours of administering the medication than the comparison drug-results presented at November's American Heart Association scientific meeting. They also have compared it to dobutamine, a commonly administered but problematic drug for patients with decompensated heart failure. It does not have the same potential for risk as dobutamine. Further, the patient mortality rate six months after receiving nesiritide for decompensated heart failure was lower than the rate for patients six months after receiving dobutamine, Elkayam reported to physicians at the annual scientific meeting of the Heart Failure Society of America in September. Elkayam explained that nesiritide is a unique compound-an analog of a brain natriuretic peptide naturally produced in the body.