According to data from 12 separate clinical trials, today's heart-failure patients are much less likely to die from sudden cardiac arrest.
In fact, sudden death from heart failure has declined by almost 50 percent in the last 20 years, according to Dr. John McMurray, the University of Glasgow cardiology professor in Scotland who organized the trials.
Vigorous combinations of powerful heart medications have turned the tide, according to McMurray. Patients can experience substantial or even complete recovery from their heart muscle dysfunction, he said.
Heart failure occurs when the heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet the body's needs. In most cases, patients have developed reduced ejection fraction, a condition in which the heart's lower chambers cannot squeeze hard enough to pump oxygen-rich blood through the body.
After reviewing the study, Dr. David Majure, medical director of mechanical circulatory support at Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital in New York, complimented the researchers, agreeing that people with heart failure tend to die from failure of the pump but not so much from sudden cardiac death.
To prevent ejection fraction, many heart failure patients receive an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD), a device that monitors heart rhythm and delivers an electrical shock to restore normal rhythm when the heartbeat starts to go astray.
According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the study's data also showed that sudden death rates have decreased by 44 percent in patients who have not received an ICD.
However, UCLA cardiologist Dr. Gregg Fonarow wasn't ready to go that far. While acknowledging that heart-failure victims are living longer and better, Fonarow said patients receiving all the guideline-recommended heart failure medications still have a residual risk of sudden death. That risk can be reduced with ICDs.
Dr. Chris O'Connor, editor-in-chief of The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, said cardiologists are not seeing optimal sudden death reduction because patients do not get, or sometimes do not take, the correct doses of medicines.