University of Colorado and the University of Maryland researchers have identified a genetic marker that can help determine before treatment whether a cornerstone drug for heart failure will help an individual patient.
Many of the estimated 5.5 million Americans with heart failure get drugs called beta blockers during their treatment, often in combination with other drugs.
The findings are significant, the researchers say, because it can often takes months to determine whether a specific bate blocker is working.
Beta blockers, designed to fight the failing heart’s tendency to beat faster, work in only about 30 percent to 50 percent of patients. In another 30 percent to 60 percent, they have no effect at all.
In 10 to 20 percent of patients, the drugs actually make the condition worse.
Currently, physicians don’t learn for six months or even a year which group a particular patient falls into, said Dr. Michael Bristow, a cardiologist at the CU school of medicine, and one of the study’s authors.
In the meantime, Bristow said, “you just hope you don’t do harm.”
Finding a genetic predictor that can eliminate that waiting “Is obviously very exciting,” Bristow said.
The search for a way to predict response to these drugs has been going on for some time.
“And frankly, nothing has worked out,” Bristow said.
Until now.
