Defined by international guidelines “capable of changing the natural history of the disease”, Glyphosine (o SLGT2), nate come anti-diabetic, currently represent la most important therapeutic innovation of heart failure, able to reduce mortality and hospitalizations even in non-diabetic patients. However, so far Italy had not implemented the new therapeutic indication, already approved by EMA last year and, in our country, the use of this new class of drugs had remained much lower than expected according to the recommendations of the new international guidelines.
Epochal turning point
“The reimbursement of Dapaglifozin, the first drug of the glyphzine class to be approved in Italy for the treatment of heart failure in patients with and without type 2 diabetes, it represents excellent news for the over one million Italians suffering from this serious pathology, for the scientific community and in particular for cardiologists – he claims Pasquale Perrone Filardi, President-elect of the Italian Society of Cardiology (SIC) – So far for allow a protective effect on the heart thanks to the help of these innovative molecules who suffered from heart failure without diabetes had to pay for the drug and contact the diabetologist rather than the cardiologist, with a waste of resources and time, increasing the complexity of the therapeutic path already per itself difficult because it must be tailored”.
“The extension of the prescribability of glyphzines also to the cardiologist will allow a more effective management of the patient with heart failure, with or without diabetes, the simplification of the care pathway and, above all, a 25-30% reduction in hospitalizations and mortality”, Continues Perrone Filardi.
Heart failure
Heart failure (or heart failure) is the final outcome of all heart disease and essentially occurs when the heart is no longer able to pump enough blood. In Italy it affects about 2% of the general population and is increasing especially in the over 65s, with a mortality of 20% in its most serious forms. It absorbs 2% of the national health expenditure but 60% of these costs are dedicated to hospitalizations and only 10% to the cost of drugs.
“Heart failure is unfortunately a frequent condition and has a prevalence that increases in the elderly up to 10%: it causes a worsening of the quality of life and the ability to cope with daily activities, and frequent hospitalizations for shortness of breath or fluid accumulation in the organism, up to greater mortality”, He observes Ciro indolfi, SIC president. Fortunately, in recent years the therapeutic paraphernalia has been enriched with new weapons. “In the last two years we have had extraordinary results of large clinical studies on glyphzines that have shown great efficacy in reducing mortality and hospitalization for heart failure but also in improving the patient’s quality of life.“- underlines the expert – “This new class of drugs acts with a completely new metabolic mechanism: initially studied and used as antidiabetic agents, they would allow to avoid up to 40 thousand deaths a year. This is associated with excellent tolerability and the possibility of a single dose per day, with little effect on blood pressure and improvement in renal function “.