New, prospective data has been published in The Lancet which, according to St Jude Medical, supports the long-term effectiveness of the CardioMEMS HF System at reducing heart failure (HF) hospitalisations for patients with New York Heart Association (NYHA) Class III HF.
Patients from the study’s control group had a 48% reduction in HF hospitalisations after moving from standard HF therapy to management based on information from the CardioMEMS HF System. The system uses a miniaturised, wireless monitoring sensor that is implanted in the pulmonary artery.
The CardioMEMS HF System was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in May 2014 based on clinical data from the landmark CHAMPION clinical study, which had an average follow-up duration of 15 months. The new publication provides results over an extended time period (an average of 31 months) demonstrating the long-term benefit of hemodynamic monitoring in reducing heart failure hospitalisation in these high risk patients.
All patients were implanted with the CardioMEMS sensor at the beginning of the study. The treatment group was monitored with the CardioMEMS HF System throughout the study with an average of 31 months of follow up. For the first 18 months, doctors treating patients in the control group were blind to the PA pressure readings and did not take readings into account when determining their treatment plan. Once physicians had access to the sensor readings for patients in the control group (open access period), they made patient management decisions based on pulmonary artery (PA) pressure data received from the CardioMEMS sensor rather than decisions based on signs and symptoms of worsening HF. This portion of the study represented a “real-world” experience since, based on the protocol, the study sponsor no longer provided communication with the study centres.
“This rigorous analysis showed a dramatic long-term impact for high-risk patients who were managed with the CardioMEMS HF System,” says Philip B. Adamson, medical director and vice president of medical affairs for St. Jude Medical. “During the first 18 months, the control group hospitalisation rates remained high but once patient management using pressure data from the CardioMEMS HF system was introduced for the first time, we saw a hospitalisation reduction of almost 50%, a clinically and highly statistically significant result.”
William Abraham, chief of cardiovascular medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, says, “The longitudinal analysis shows an important reduction in these admission rates when patients are monitored with the CardioMEMS HF System.”
Upon the treating physicians having access to the CardioMEMS PA pressure readings and managing the control group patients based on pressures, patients in the control group of the study experienced a statistically significant 48% reduction in HF hospitalisations. In addition, hospitalisation rates continued to remain low in the treatment group during the open access period demonstrating the durability of the effect of home hemodynamic monitoring.
The CHAMPION study originally demonstrated a statistically and clinically significant 28% reduction in the rate of HF hospitalizations at six months, and a 37% reduction in HF hospitalisations during an average follow-up duration of 15 months. This new long-term, prospective data further supports the effectiveness of the CardioMEMS system at reducing HF hospitalisations.
The CardioMEMS HF System uses a miniature wireless monitoring sensor implanted in the PA, designed to directly measure blood pressure and heart rate data. Patients can transmit this data from home to their health care providers, allowing providers to stabilise PA pressure by managing the patient’s medications more effectively.
