Echocardiographic ejection fraction in patients with acute heart failure: correlations with hemodynamic, clinical, and neurohormonal measures and short-term outcome.

Background: Although echocardiographic ejection fraction (EF) is frequently used for the estimation of left ventricular contractility in patients with acute heart failure, its exact role and correlations with clinical, hemodynamic, and neurohormonal variables of cardiac contractility is not known.

Methods: Patients (343) with acute heart failure, enrolled into two prospective placebo-controlled hemodynamic studies of tezosentan, and in whom EF was available at baseline, were included. Outcome was evaluated in a subset of 94 patients who were enrolled in the placebo arms of the studies.

The hemodynamic and neurohormonal effects of low doses of tezosentan (an endothelin A/B receptor antagonist) in patients with acute heart failure.

Background: In previous studies (the RITZ project), tezosentan, an intravenous (i.v.)-balanced dual endothelin (ET-A/B) antagonist, in doses of 50 and 100 mg/h, improved the hemodynamics but not the clinical outcome of patients with acute heart failure (AHF).

RITZ-5: randomized intravenous TeZosentan (an endothelin-A/B antagonist) for the treatment of pulmonary edema: a prospective, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate the addition of intravenous (IV) tezosentan to standard therapy for patients with pulmonary edema.

Background: Tezosentan is an IV nonselective endothelin (ET)-1 antagonist that yields favorable hemodynamic effects in patients with acute congestive heart failure (CHF).

Methods: Pulmonary edema was defined as acute CHF leading to respiratory failure, as evidenced by an oxygen saturation (SO(2)) <90% by pulse oxymeter despite oxygen treatment.