Thousands could be saved by making this small change to heart failure treatment
New guidelines for treating heart failure could save 3,000 lives and prevent 5,500 hospital admissions every year, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice).
The draft guidelines recommend that medicines be administered up to a year earlier for a specific type of heart failure known as heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).
This condition occurs when the left side of the heart struggles to pump blood effectively throughout the body.
HFrEF affects approximately 387,000 of the 614,000 adults in England who suffer from heart failure. The new Nice guidelines aim to improve outcomes for these patients by ensuring timely and effective treatment.
Nice said medics are already changing practice to ensure that the four pillars of treatment – angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI), a beta-blocker (BB), a mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA) and a sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitor – can be used earlier without the need to optimise the dose of any one medicine before introducing another.
Nice is recommending widespread earlier use of the SGLT2 inhibitors empagliflozin and dapagliflozin – giving them at the start of treatment rather than waiting up to a year for dosage of other drugs to be optimised.
Generally, Nice said the drugs can also be started by GPs with advice from a heart failure specialist, rather than having to refer people to hospitals.
Eric Power, deputy director in Nice's centre for guidelines, said: 'Heart failure is common, with currently around 614,000 adults in England living with a diagnosis.
'Although there's no cure, it is treatable, and the growing number of people living with heart failure is testament to the improvements in care introduced over recent years.
'For this update we've been able to review the emerging evidence quickly to keep pace with changes in the treatment landscape and make recommendations that will widen access to effective treatments.
'This should have a big impact on the lives of people living with heart failure as well as freeing up space in hospitals by reducing their risk of having to go to hospital for unplanned emergency treatment.'
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