PharmacoEconomics & Outcomes News 346 - 19 Jan 2002

Torasemide for HF improvesclinical outcomes and QOL

Patients with chronic heart failure (HF) treated withtorasemide [torsemide] have better clinical outcomesand experience less fatigue than patients treated withfurosemide, according to researchers from the US.

They conducted an open-label study in which 234patients (mean age 64.1 years) admitted to hospital withchronic HF were randomly assigned to treatment withtorasemide (n = 113) or furosemide (121) for 1 year.*Health-related quality-of-life (QOL) analysis wasperformed using the Chronic Heart FailureQuestionnaire (CHFQ) at baseline and at 2, 4, 8 and 12months.

Results showed that patients treated with torasemidewere significantly less likely to be readmitted to hospitalfor HF (17 vs 32% of patients) and for all cardiovascularcauses (44 vs 59%) than patients treated withfurosemide. Torasemide recipients also spent fewerdays in hospital due to HF (106 vs 296 days) and allcardiovascular causes (364 vs 614).

Torasemide recipients showed better improvementsfrom baseline in the dyspnoea and fatigue scores of theCHFQ than those treated with furosemide, with scoresreaching statistical significance for fatigue at months 2, 8and 12.* The study was supported in part by Roche Laboratories, US.

Murray MD, et al. Open-label randomized trial of torsemide compared withfurosemide therapy for patients with heart failure. American Journal of Medicine111: 513-520, Nov 2001 800885886

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PharmacoEconomics & Outcomes News 19 Jan 2002 No. 3461173-5503/10/0346-0001/$14.95 Adis © 2010 Springer International Publishing AG. All rights reserved