Real-world Patient Survival with Defibrillators Matches Trial Expectations
Patients who received an implantable heart defibrillator in everyday practice had survival benefits on par with those who received the same devices in carefully controlled clinical trials, according to a new study that highlights the value of defibrillators in typical medical settings.
Led by the Duke Clinical Research Institute and published Jan. 2, 2013, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study used data from a large national Medicare registry to assess the survival of patients receiving defibrillators, which are commonly used to prevent sudden cardiac death.
Because clinical trial participants tend to receive more meticulous care while also being healthier than patients seen in clinical practice, the actual benefits of new drugs and medical devices can be less positive than initially reported. Not so for the defibrillators, at least when comparing patients with similar characteristics in both the clinical trials and real-world practice.
“Many people question how the results of clinical trials apply to patients in routine practice,” said lead author Sana M. Al-Khatib, M.D., MHS, an electrophysiologist and member of the Duke Clinical Research Institute. “We showed that patients in real-world practice who receive a defibrillator but who are most likely not monitored at the same level provided in clinical trials have similar survival outcomes compared to patients who received a defibrillator in the clinical trials.”
“This study demonstrated the real-world applicability of the results of recent randomized clinical trials,” said Alice Mascette, M.D., of the NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) have been lifesavers for people with a history of cardiac arrest or heart failure. The devices, small electrical units implanted in the chest with wires that lead into the heart, send an electronic pulse when the heart stops beating to reestablish a normal rhythm.
Science Brief thanks to EurekAlert.
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Real-world patient survival with defibrillators matches trial expectations
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