ARB therapy may gain new roles in heart failure care: findings from CHARM program. (angiotensin receptor blocker, Candesartan in Heart Failure: Assessment of Reduction in Mortality and Morbidity).

Publication: Internal Medicine News

Publication Date: 15-OCT-03

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COPYRIGHT 2003 International Medical News Group

VIENNA -- The angiotensin receptor blocker candesartan provides clinical benefits across a broad spectrum of patients with symptomatic congestive heart failure, including those also taking both an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and [beta]-blocker as well as those with preserved systolic function, Dr. Marc A. Pfeffer reported at the annual congress of the European Society of Cardiology.

Results of the Candesartan in Heart Failure: Assessment of Reduction in Mortality and Morbidity (CHARM) program break new ground by identifying huge new segments of the congestive heart failure (CHF) population in whom angiotensin receptor blockade is beneficial. The data show that far more widespread use of candesartan in patients with CHF "would be an advance in the practice of medicine," said Dr. Pfeffer, CHARM cochair and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston.

But just how persuasively CHARM made its case for consideration of angiotensin receptor blockade in virtually all patients with symptomatic CHF was a topic of...

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