Cardiac-resynchronization therapy (CRT) has been shown to be beneficial in heart failure (HF) patients with a wide QRS interval. These benefits have not been reproduced so far in patients with narrow QRS intervals, though many such patients have ventricular dyssynchrony. Now a new study, presented at the European Society of Cardiology in Amsterdam and published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine, once again has failed to find benefits for CRT in a broader patient population.
The EchoCRT Study Group randomized HF patients with a QRS duration < 130 msec and left ventricular dyssnchrony upon echocardiography. All patients received a CRT-D device; half the patients were randomized to have the CRT feature activated.
The study was stopped prematurely after 809 patients had been randomized and followed for nearly 20 months.
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