Pryds K, et al. - This study reports the consequences of long-term remote ischemic conditioning (RIC) treatment in patients with chronic ischaemic heart failure (CIHF). In patients with compensated CIHF, long-term RIC treatment did not improve left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) but increased skeletal muscle function and reduced blood pressure and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP).

Methods

• Researchers performed a parallel group study including 22 patients with compensated CIHF and 21 matched control subjects without heart failure or ischemic heart disease.
• Study participants were assessed by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, cardiopulmonary exercise testing, skeletal muscle function testing, blood pressure measurement and blood sampling before and after 28 ± 4 days of once daily RIC treatment.
• RIC was conducted as four cycles of 5 min upper arm ischemia followed by 5 min of reperfusion.

Results

• Findings demonstrated no impact of RIC on left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) or global longitudinal strain (GLS) in patients with CIHF (p=0.63 and p=0.11) or matched controls (p=0.32 and p=0.20).
• Researchers observed that in the subgroup of patients with CIHF and with NT-proBNP plasma levels above the geometric mean of 372 ng/l (p=0.04), RIC improved GLS.
• They also noted that there was no impact of RIC on peak workload or oxygen uptake in either patients with CIHF (p=0.26 and p=0.59) or matched controls (p=0.61 and p=0.10).
• However, data reported that RIC improved skeletal muscle power in both groups (p=0.02 for both).
• Additionally, RIC treatment resulted in lowering of systolic blood pressure (p < 0.01) and reduction in NT-proBNP plasma levels (p=0.02) in patients with CIHF.