Digitoxin

trials and registries describe heterogeneous effects of cardiac glycosides on morbidity and mortality in patients with HF with and without atrial fibrillation, or AF.

In a rapid communications article entitled Digitoxin in Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction According to Atrial Fibrillation Status, the Digit HF Trial, Udo Bavende and colleagues from Hanover Medical School in Germany investigate whether the efficacy of digitoxin differed according to the diagnosis of AF at baseline.

Prospective data on the impact of cardiac glycosides on hard clinical outcomes in patients with concomitant HFREF and AF are lacking.

The DIGIT-HF trial recently demonstrated that low-dose digitoxin, added to well-implemented GRMT, reduced the primary composite outcome of all-cause death, or ACD, or first hospitalization for worsening HF, or HFH, in patients with HFREF.