AT the recent ESC Congress 2019 in Paris, France, AstraZeneca announced detailed results from its landmark Phase III DAPA-HF trial that showed Dapagliflozin on top of standard of care, significantly reduced both the incidence of cardiovascular death and the worsening of heart failure.
Dapagliflozin is currently approved to treat patients with T2D. The results of the trial showed that Dapagliflozin reduced the composite of cardiovascular (CV) death or worsening of heart failure by 26% and showed a reduction in each of the individual components of the composite endpoint. A very important endpoint was the 18% reduction in cardiovascular mortality and 17 % decrease in all cause deaths.
“AstraZeneca is committed to uplifting the standard of care of Filipino patients by providing them with innovative and accessible treatment. Dapagliflozin is well established in the treatment of type-2 diabetes, and these new findings show the potential of the medicine to reduce the burden of heart failure for many Filipino patients, even if they don’t have type-2 diabetes,” said Lotis Ramin, AstraZeneca Philippines Country President.
Heart failure is a life-threatening disease in which the heart cannot pump enough blood around the body. In the Philippines, heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death, with 74,134 reported cases in 2016. Also, the World Health Organization predicts that from 2.7 million in 2000, the number of diabetics in the country will reach 7.7 million by the year 2030. These 2 diseases are very closely linked to each other, with heart failure being one of the most common complications of diabetes.
Dr. Ariel Miranda, interventional cardiologist and head of cardiac catheterization laboratory of Cardinal Santos Medical Center expressed optimism for the detailed results, in fact, he postulated before that SGLT2 inhibitors might actually be a cardiac drug with blood sugar lowering benefits instead of the other way around. He said “The results of the Dapagliflozin DAPA-HF trials bodes well for the Philippine situation— since despite advances in therapy, heart failure morbidity and mortality remain high, signifying that there is still an unmet need for effective heart failure treatments.”
When asked about the safety of Dapagliflozin, Dr. Miranda commented, “The safety profile of Dapagliflozin in the DAPA-HF trial was consistent with the well-established safety profile of the medicine. In patients with heart failure, common concerns were actually comparable to placebo results.”
