Meta-analysis finds low-dose digoxin, a decades-old heart drug costing under 10 cents a day, cuts heart failure hospitalizations by 25%
A meta-analysis led by University Medical Center Groningen, combining a 1,000-patient Dutch trial with two earlier studies, found that low-dose digoxin, a heart medication costing less than 10 cents a day, reduced heart failure hospital admissions by 25%. Per UMC Groningen/ScienceDaily, published in Nature Medicine and JAMA.
A meta-analysis led by cardiologists at University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) found that low-dose digoxin, a heart failure drug used in medicine for more than two centuries, reduces heart failure hospitalizations by about 25% when added to standard treatment. The core trial followed 1,000 heart failure patients across 43 centers in the Netherlands for an average of three years; that trial's primary outcome alone did not reach statistical significance, but combining it in a meta-analysis with two earlier digoxin trials produced a statistically significant reduction in hospital admissions for heart failure. Digoxin costs less than ten cents a day, compared to several euros a day for newer heart failure medications, yet only about 15% of heart failure patients currently receive it after decades of decline as newer drugs became available. The findings were published in Nature Medicine and JAMA and presented at the ESC Heart Failure congress in Barcelona. Sources: ScienceDaily/UMC Groningen, ESC press release, JAMA.