Long-Term Benefit of Enalapril for LV Systolic Dysfunction

In the randomized, placebo-controlled Studies of Left Ventricular Dysfunction (SOLVD), a median 3.2 years of treatment with the ACE inhibitor enalapril limited mortality in patients . . .

In the randomized, placebo-controlled Studies of Left Ventricular Dysfunction (SOLVD), a median 3.2 years of treatment with the ACE inhibitor enalapril limited mortality in patients with symptomatic LV systolic dysfunction (LVSD; treatment trial) but not in patients with asymptomatic LVSD (prevention trial).

In this extended study (X-SOLVD), researchers followed patients in both SOLVD trials for roughly an additional 9 years to assess enalapril's effect on long-term survival. The researchers had available follow-up data from 6784 (99.8%) of the original 6797 SOLVD subjects and subsequent vital-status data from the 5165 subjects who were still alive at the end of the original trials.

Cumulative all-cause mortality rates (during 11-12 total yea…

Reviewing Author

Beat J. Meyer, MD