Mavacamten, which was essentially designed for the treatment of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, has demonstrated potential to lessen heart stress for patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. It is widely known that HFpEF is present in almost 40% of all HF patients. It is defined by the heart’s failure to effectively fill with blood even though the pumping muscle is strong enough.
Around 43-46% of cases with HFpEF patients have an LVEF of 60% or more. These people experience a weak pharmacological reaction to conventional agents used to combat heart failure and, therefore, therapy choice is limited.
Mavacamten is a cardiac myosin inhibitor that has previously been sanctioned for the treatment of HCM and has been proven to reduce the high biomarkers in non-obstructive HCM groups. Scientists assumed that the same changes might help HFpEF subjects as it pertains to enhanced heart muscle relaxation and decreased functional load on the organ.
In a Brief Report titled “Cardiac Myosin Inhibition in Heart Failure With Normal and Supranormal Ejection Fraction: In the article entitled “EMBARK-HFpEF Trial: Rationale, Design, and Primary Efficacy Endpoints,”– to be published in JAMA Cardiology–, the multi-centered study led by the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University presents its first findings.
The team reveals that mavacamten treatment for 26 weeks reduced other cardiac biomarkers reflecting heart stress and injury in the HFpEF patients currently presenting with an LVEF of 60% or greater.
EMBARK-HFpEF is an international, Phase IIa, single centre, open-label safety and efficacy study with only one arm. It recruited 30 patients with symptomatic HF with preserved ejection fraction; LVEF of 60% or greater.
Participants received mavacamten for 26 weeks at an initial dose at 2.5 mg/day, which could be escalated to 5 mg/day based on echocardiographic assessments at week 14.
This allowed the study to establish that mavacamten treatment resulted in the class reduction of cardiac biomarkers that reflect systemic heart stress.
N-terminal pro B –type natriuretic peptide, a marker of cardiac stress reduced by an average of twenty six percent.
The safety data of mavacamten are as follows: I mapped the javelin of mavacamten into it. Three patients had corresponding reduction of LVEF and the drug was stopped for some time Though all patients reached their baseline and with no complications the drug was resumed again. The present study did not record any serious adverse events or mortality associated with mavacamten within the period under consideration.
The findings of this study led to a new Phase II randomised controlled trial called AURORA-HFpEF that will investigate mavacamten’s effects on HFpEF with PEF. Researchers are expecting these coming out studies to yield more information about the possibility that this drug will play in dealing with this complex form of heart failure.
Reference:Â Jackson J. Mavacamten linked to cardiac biomarker improvements in HFpEF patients
