Randomized, Double-Blinded, Multicenter, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Shenfu Injection for Treatment of Patients with Chronic Heart Failure during the Acute Phase of Symptom Aggravation (Yang and Qi Deficiency Syndrome)

Background. Shenfu injection (SFI) has shown a remarkable therapeutic effect in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) during the acute phase of symptom aggravation since it became commercially available in 1987. However, the therapeutic effect of SFI has not been validated in a standard clinical study. As a pilot clinical trial, this study aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of SFI for treatment of CHF patients during the acute phase. Methods. A total of 160 patients experiencing acute phase CHF were enrolled in this study and randomly assigned to receive the placebo (placebo group, 150 ml glucose (GS)) or SFI (SFI group, 50 ml SFI + 100 ml GS) in addition to their standard medications for CHF treatment. The treatment lasted for 7 ± 1 days, and the follow-up continued for 28 ± 3 days after treatment. The primary endpoints were New York Heart Association (NYHA) classification and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) syndrome scores. Results. After 7±1 days of treatment, the efficacy of SFI according to improvements in NYHA and TCM syndrome scores in the SFI group (78.38% and 89.19%, respectively) was significantly higher than that in the placebo group (61.43% and 60.00%, respectively; P

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