In the Netherlands, approximately 242,000 people live with heart failure. In patients with heart failure, the heart works less well, making it more difficult to pump the blood. There are several medications that can take the load off the heart and improve its function. This allows the patient to live longer and in better health.
Kidney problems in heart failure
About half of people with heart failure develop kidney function problems. Scientists don’t yet know how well heart failure drugs work in patients with poor kidney function. Because many medicines for heart failure put an extra burden on the kidneys, the doctor now often chooses to stop or never even start the treatment in these people. Beldhuis thinks that it may actually be beneficial to start or continue treatment in patients with poor kidney function.
Still treat patients with heart failure and kidney problems
Beldhuis will investigate how well heart failure drugs work in patients who also have or develop poor kidney function. She thinks that it is precisely these people who can benefit most from the heart medicines. “In recent years, wonderful new medicines for heart failure have been discovered. These can really improve patients’ lives. We have been very careful in developing these new drugs: they have not been tested in patients with heart failure and poor kidney function. As a result, we do not really know how these drugs work in this group of patients. It is a shame that these drugs are so little used because too little is known, especially about the effect on the kidneys. The fact that the kidney function is getting worse as a result of the treatment can actually mean that the treatment is working. In previous research we have shown that the drugs seem to work better if they have an effect on the kidneys, but nothing is yet known about the exact effect, especially in patients with very poor kidney function. We will investigate this using the latest techniques.”
Two years of research for better treatment
There are different types of heart failure. Over the next two years, Beldhuis wants to find out which patients with heart failure are more susceptible to developing kidney problems, how this differs between different forms of heart failure and between men and women. She also wants to find out whether the development of kidney function problems after starting treatment means that the heart failure medication is working. With this she wants to achieve that more people with heart failure will soon receive the optimal treatment and will therefore be able to live longer and in better health.