medwireNews: Adding dapagliflozin to standard care improves outcomes for people with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) irrespective of sex, suggests a prespecified subgroup analysis of the DAPA-HF trial.
In the primary analysis of the placebo-controlled phase 3 study, reported previously by medwireNews, treatment with dapagliflozin 10 mg/day significantly reduced the risk for the primary composite outcome of cardiovascular death or worsening HF among 4744 participants with HFrEF with or without type 2 diabetes.
In the current analysis, John McMurray (University of Glasgow, UK) and co-investigators found that treatment with the sodium-glucose cotransporter (SGLT)2 inhibitor versus placebo reduced the risk for the primary outcome to a similar degree among men (n=3635) and women (n=1109) in the trial, with hazard ratios of 0.73 and 0.79, respectively.
The researchers also report in JAMA Cardiology that the efficacy of dapagliflozin “was consistent in men and women for all secondary end points,” including rates of HF hospitalization and all-cause mortality, and the proportion of participants with meaningful improvement in symptoms. Moreover, the benefits of the SGLT2 inhibitor were consistent, regardless of sex, in patients both with and without diabetes.
McMurray and team say that in general, the proportion of participants who discontinued treatment due to adverse events was similar in men and women, but rates of treatment discontinuation for any reason were higher among women.
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