New Therapy Found to Prevent Hea...( ROCHESTER N.Y. June 23 -- A landmark...),Health

ROCHESTER, N.Y., June 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A landmark study has successfully demonstrated a 29 percent reduction in heart failure or death in patients with heart disease who received an implanted cardiac resynchronization therapy device with defibrillator (CRT-D) versus patients who received only an implanted cardiac defibrillator (ICD-only).

MADIT-CRT (Multicenter Automatic Defibrillator Implantation Trial with Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy) is a clinical trial that enrolled more than 1,800 patients in the United States, Canada and Europe and followed the patients for up to 41/2 years. The results of the trial were released today by the University of Rochester Medical Center and Boston Scientific, the study's sponsor. The MADIT-CRT Executive Committee stopped the trial on June 22, 2009, when the trial achieved its primary end point - significant reduction in heart failure or death with CRT-D versus ICD-only. Cardiologist Arthur Moss, M.D., professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, led the MADIT-CRT trial.

A prior study (MADIT-II) led by Moss and associates in 2002 showed the ICD was effective in reducing mortality. The current MADIT-CRT study sought to determine if CRT-D could reduce the risk of mortality and heart failure, which affects 5.7 million Americans, and the results were very positive.

Patients with heart disease have a risk of arrhythmias and heart failure. The new generation of cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators (CRT-Ds) was designed to stop dangerous, life-threatening heart rhythms and improve the heart's contraction, thereby enabling the device to improve survival and prevent heart failure.

CRT-Ds are approved for use in patients with severe heart failure (New York Heart Association class III/IV), whe
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