(HealthDay News) — For patients hospitalized for heart failure, all-cause mortality does not differ significantly at 12 months for those receiving torsemide or furosemide, according to a study published in the Jan. 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Robert J. Mentz, MD, from the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, NC, and colleagues compared torsemide and furosemide among 2,859 patients hospitalized for heart failure in an open-label randomized trial conducted at 60 hospitals.
The researchers found that death occurred in 26.1 and 26.2% of 1,431 and 1,428 patients in the torsemide and furosemide groups, respectively (hazard ratio, 1.02; 95% confidence interval, 0.89 to 1.18). All-cause mortality or all-cause hospitalization occurred in 47.3 and 49.3% of patients in the torsemide and furosemide groups, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.92; 95% confidence interval, 0.83 to 1.02). Overall, there were 940 and 987 total hospitalizations among 536 and 577 participants in the torsemide and furosemide groups, respectively (rate ratio, 0.94; 95% confidence interval, 0.84 to 1.07). Similar results were seen in prespecified subgroups.
“Our study showed that torsemide did not improve survival compared to furosemide in this high-risk population of patients with heart failure, and we also observed similar rates of hospitalization with the two medications,” Mentz said in a statement.
Several authors disclosed financial ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.
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