Sodium nitroprusside for advanced heart failure. A metanalysis of literature data.

Advanced heart failure (HF) is associated with a very poor prognosis and places a big burden on health-care services. The gold standard treatment, i.e. long-term mechanical circulatory support or heart transplantation, is precluded in many patients but observational studies suggest that the use of SNP might be associated with favourable long-term clinical outcomes. We performed a metanalysis of published studies that compared sodium nitroprusside (SNP) with optimal medical therapy to examine the safety and efficacy of SNP as part of the treatment regimen of patients hospitalized for advanced heart failure (HF). We searched PUBMED, EMBASE and WEB OF SCIENCE for studies that compared SNP with optimal medical therapy in advanced HF on July 2022. After screening 700 full-text articles, data from two original articles were included in a combined analysis. The analysis demonstrated a 66% reduction in the odds of death in advanced HF patients treated with SNP. The results show the potential importance of the inclusion of SNP in the treatment regimen of patients hospitalized because of advanced HF and underlines that controlled, randomized studies are still required in this condition.

Iatrogenic atrial septal defect does not affect acute hemodynamic modifications after transcatheter edge-to-edge repair in patients with functional mitral regurgitation.

OBJECTIVE: The correction of functional mitral regurgitation (FMR) with transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (TEER) can favorably affect patients' hemodynamic profile. However, the procedure requires inter-atrial trans-septal access and the hemodynamic relevance of the residual iatrogenic atrium septal defect (iASD) is still debated. This study aimed at investigating the hemodynamic modifications during TEER with MitraClip, before and after the iASD creation, in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) and severe FMR. METHODS: Thirty-nine HFrEF patients with 3+ or 4+/4+ FMR were included. Right heart catheterization was performed at baseline after general anesthesia induction and at the end of TEER, both before and after removing the device guiding catheter. RESULTS: Compared with baseline, MitraClip positioning was followed by a significant immediate improvement in cardiac output (respectively: 3.36 vs 5.05 ml/min), pulmonary artery wedge pressure (23.7 vs 18.2 mmHg), mean pulmonary artery pressure (34.4 vs 27.7 mmHg) and pulmonary vascular resistance (3.6 vs 2.2 Wood Units) (all p < 0.001). No further significant modifications occurred after removing the device guiding catheter. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that the acute hemodynamic modifications after TEER are not influenced by the induction of iASD in patients with FMR.