Biomedical subjects

A J Block

Publications and source records attributed to A J Block.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

A health perception score predicts cardiac events in patients with heart failure: results from the IMPRESS trial.

BACKGROUND: New York Heart Association (NYHA) class and treadmill exercise test variables are widely used for estimating prognosis and measuring the outcomes of treatment in patients with heart failure, but they do not take patients' perceptions into account. METHODS AND RESULTS: Five hundred forty-five patients enrolled in a multicenter 24-week comparison of the effects of omapatrilat and lisinopril on functional capacity in patients with heart failure reported a visual analog scale (VAS) score of their overall health perception at week 12 of the study. A total of 27 first events, defined as death or worsening heart failure (hospitalization, emergency room visit, or study discontinuation), occurred in the subsequent 12 weeks. The mean (+/-SD) health perception scores were 0.43 +/- 0.31 and 0.68 +/- 0.20 in patients with and without events, respectively (P =.0006). The risk ratio (RR) for an event associated with a decile change in the health perception score was 0.74 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.61-0.88; P =.001). The RR was unaltered by adjustment for demographic variables, treadmill time, and NYHA functional class. Although the week 12 NYHA functional class was predictive of events (RR = 2.1; 95% CI, 1.2-4.6; P =.04), treadmill time was not (RR = 0.87; 95% CI, 0.73-1.03; P = 0.11). CONCLUSIONS: A patient-reported measure of perceived health predicts events in patients with heart failure.

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PubMed2001

Medicine and the media.

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PubMed2001

Is anyone paying attention?

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Critical Care↗

PubMed2000

Comparison of vasopeptidase inhibitor, omapatrilat, and lisinopril on exercise tolerance and morbidity in patients with heart failure: IMPRESS randomised trial.

BACKGROUND: We aimed to assess in patients with congestive heart failure whether dual inhibition of neutral endopeptidase and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) with the vasopeptidase inhibitor omapatrilat is better than ACE inhibition alone with lisinopril on functional capacity and clinical outcome. METHODS: We did a prospective, randomised, double-blind, parallel trial of 573 patients with New York Heart Association (NYHA) class II-IV congestive heart failure, left-ventricular ejection fraction of 40% or less, and receiving an ACE inhibitor. Patients were randomly assigned omapatrilat at a daily target dose of 40 mg (n=289) or lisinopril at a daily target dose of 20 mg (n=284) for 24 weeks. The primary endpoint was improvement in maximum exercise treadmill test (ETT) at week 12. Secondary endpoints included death and comorbid events indicative of worsening heart failure. FINDINGS: Week 12 ETT increased similarly in the omapatrilat and lisinopril groups (24 vs 31 s, p=0.45). The two drugs were fairly well tolerated, but there were fewer cardiovascular-system serious adverse events in the omapatrilat group than in the lisinopril group (20 [7%] vs 34 [12%], p=0.04). There was a suggestive trend in favour of omapatrilat on the combined endpoint of death or admission for worsening heart failure (p=0.052; hazard ratio 0.53 [95% CI 0.27-1.02]) and a significant benefit of omapatrilat in the composite of death, admission, or discontinuation of study treatment for worsening heart failure (p=0.035; 0.52 [0.28-0.96]). Omapatrilat improved NYHA class more than lisinopril in patients who had NYHA class III and IV (p=0.035), but not if patients with NYHA class II were included. INTERPRETATION: Our findings suggest that omapatrilat could have some advantages over lisinopril in the treatment of patients with congestive heart failure. Thus use of vasopeptidase inhibitors could constitute a potentially important treatment for further improving the prognosis and well being of patients with this disorder.

Angiotensin II↗

PubMed2000