Vesnarinone for Heart Failure

Abstract

In the report by Feldman et al. (July 15 issue)¹ we are concerned about the lack of agreement between the results of the two doses used in the trial. When the study was designed, it seemed plausible that the 120-mg dose would be more effective than the 60-mg dose. However, the opposite was found. We think it is important to combine the mortality data for the 87 patients receiving the higher dose of vesnarinone with those for the 239 patients receiving the lower dose, in addition to the analyses presented in the article. When this is done, it turns out that there were 33 deaths among the 238 patients in the placebo group (13.9 percent) and 29 deaths among the 326 patients in the two vesnarinone groups combined (9.9 percent; P = 0.085; relative risk, 0.79; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.60 to 1.04). In the article, it is mentioned that the time of death in the 120-mg group differed from that in the other two groups. We would also like to see life-table curves for the placebo group and all treated patients.