Will there be help for heart patients?
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As part of the first competition for the implementation of non-commercial clinical trials, the Medical Research Agency (ABM) financed a study designed by scientists from the Department of Cardiology of the Medical University of Bialystok. The aim of the study is to help patients with advanced systolic heart failure. It has been reported that the method developed may protect up to 4 thousand patients from death or exacerbation of the disease per year.
Medical University in Bialystok: efficacy and effectiveness study
The ABM in its communication stated that a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was designed at the Department of Cardiology of the Medical University in Bialystok to determine the effectiveness of repeated Lewosimendan infusions in outpatients with advanced systolic heart failure. The study is carried out with AMB funding allocated to non-commercial clinical trials, as we have already written about in 2019.
If the clinical trials confirm the effectiveness of the developed treatment method, then the new treatment procedure may save 3,750 people in Poland within a year from death or aggravation of severe heart failure and stay in hospital. In the long term, the Medical University in Bialystok expects that effective treatment with levosimendan will help to inhibit the progression of the disease, extend the average life expectancy after the diagnosis of heart failure and improve its quality, ABM informed in its announcement.
Grant for a non-commercial clinical trial
The grant for this purpose was awarded in the framework of a competition, the results of which we learned at the end of March 2020. The project concerning research in patients with heart failure treated in outpatient clinics received PLN 20.6m in funding. The author of the application was Prof. Agnieszka Tycinska, PhD, from the Cardiology Clinic of the Medical University in Bialystok.
It is worth noting that cardiovascular diseases are the first cause of death in Poland. The most common cardiovascular disease in Poland is heart failure, from which approximately 750-800,000 Poles suffer, and nearly 250,000 were hospitalised for this reason in 2018. What is more, this disease is responsible for nearly one tenth of all deaths in Poland every year.
