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The Sudden Cardiac Death in Heart Failure Trial (SCD-HeFT) results, published in The New England Journal of Medicine on January 20th, 2005, showed that ICD therapy reduced all-cause mortality by 23% as compared to placebo. This mortality benefit was observed in patients who were already optimally managed on drug therapy. Amiodarone had no significant effect on all-cause mortality.
SCD-HeFT, a landmark clinical trial in heart failure (HF) and cardiology, compares the efficacy of implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD), amiodarone and placebo in treating 2,521 patients with low ejection fraction and mild to moderate HF.
The National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute conducted the SCD-HeFT clinical study as an independent trial, with funding from Medtronic, Inc. and Wyeth Ayerst. |
